Czech court clears publishers of Hitler speeches

The publishers of Adolf Hitler’s speeches have been cleared of charges of propagating Nazism. A court in Brno said the collection of the Nazi dictator’s speeches was obviously a historical text, and found no evidence it promoted the Nazi ideology.

Photo: Guidemedia

Two co-owners of a Brno-based publishing house, Guidemedia, and an editor faced up to ten years in jail on charges of propagating Nazism for the publication of Adolf Hitler: Speeches.

The book, which came last year in 10,000 copies, consists of 18 addresses delivered by the Nazi dictator between 1939 and 1942.

Prosecution raised charges against the three men last July. But on Wednesday, the municipal court of Brno ruled that the publication of the book was not a criminal act.

Judge Martin Hrabal said the book was obviously a historic text, and the court found no evidence it could be used to fuel the neo-Nazi movement.

The court also sided with the defence when it controversially argued that no contemporary movement follows up on Hitler’s version of Nazism.

Prosecution experts also claimed that editorial notes and commentaries accompanying the text of the speeches pictured Adolf Hitler as a “peaceful man” who “strived to achieve peace among nations”.

Pavel Kamas, photo: CTK

The court said however the commentaries were clearly compiled from Hitler’s own statements, and were not the work of the book’s editor. Jan Vučka was the defence attorney in the case.

“I cannot agree with the idea that a historical document can only be published when accompanied by the right and state-approved commentary. That’s an absolutely undemocratic notion.”

During the trial, which started in June, the publishers consistently denied that their goal was to promote Nazi ideology. Instead, they said it was a business decision.

One of the owners, Pavel Kamas, told the court earlier this week that “Hitler sold better than Coca-Cola.”

The ruling has drawn criticism from some historians and extremism experts. Historian and former senator Daniel Kroupa said he believed the publication of such texts promoted Nazism regardless of the publishers’ motivation.

Adolf Hitler, photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1990-048-29A / CC-BY-SA

“I have to say I strongly dislike the fact that publishers get away with such activities. First of all, I don’t believe those people are doing it just for the money. But even if they did, they simply do promote movements that aim to supress human rights.”

The publication of Hitler speeches is the second such case dealt with by Czech courts in recent years. In 2001, a Prague publisher put out the Czech translation of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Although the publisher initially landed a conditional sentence, the Czech Supreme Court later overturned the verdict and cleared the men of hate-crime charges.