A new bookstore was found to be selling self-published copies of Adolf Hitler’s memoir with a blurb describing it as a ‘political manifesto’ and advertising that it sold 5.2 million copies by the year 1939.
Aafaq bookstore, a newly opened shop on Edgware Road selling arabic translations of works by famous figures including Sigmund Freud, Mahatma Gandhi and George Orwell, had several copies of the dictator’s sole work on display.
Mein Kampf, commonly translated as My Struggle, was penned by Hitler while he served time at Landsberg prison in 1924 and became the basis for Nazi ideology.
The edition, which features a picture of Hitler in uniform performing a Nazi salute on the front cover, was produced by Aafaq’s own publishing house.
When WT visited the store, located a short walk from one of London’s largest reform synagogues, staff denied they had ever stocked the book. However the work was on sale for £11.99 on the store’s website under its common arabic title, Kifāḥī كفاحي.
Pictures also showed the book had been displayed prominently in the shop earlier today.
The now deleted webpage says the book had sold five times within the last 20 hours and that there were just three copies left in stock.
Attributed to Mustafa Bin Rizq, the book is described in its blurb as ‘shedding light on Hitler’s youth, World War I and the betrayal that led to Germany’s collapse in 1918’.
This appears to be a nod to the dolchstoßlegende or ‘stab-in-the-back myth’, an antisemitic conspiracy theory propagated by Hitler, which says that Germany lost World War I as a result of a betrayal by Jews and socialists.
Councillor Elliot Keck, who represents Hyde Park ward, said he hoped the business would ‘fail quickly’ for stocking the work.
He said: ‘Imagine my disgust upon going into this new Arabic bookstore on the Edgware Road last night only to find them selling multiple copies of Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler, apparently published themselves.
‘I rarely wish ill on a new business, but I hope this one fails, and fails quickly.’
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: ‘Businesses should not be profiting from selling the most extreme anti-Jewish propaganda, particularly at a time when antisemitism in Britain is at record highs.
‘There is certainly a place for understanding history through annotated versions of texts which give important context, but not books that simply regurgitate hate and risk inciting violence.
‘Bookshops selling Mein Kampf should immediately withdraw them and similar materials from sale. This incident will rightly prompt questions about why this shop is selling these books, and why they are so popular among their clientele as to justify holding multiple copies in stock.’
The Edgware Road store is Aafaq’s second location outside its native Kuwait and first in London.
In a statement the bookstore suggested that the three copies of Mein Kampf were on a table with history books near the back of the shop.
‘The presence of a controversial historical book in a bookshop does not constitute endorsement of its ideas’, it said.
‘Aafaq uniquivocally rejects Nazi ideology, antisemitism, racism and Islamophobia.’
I have passed through Marble Arch, where they gather to obviously promote customer relations with people who’ll more likely be in a good enough mood to listen.
They lure you in, by persuading you to take free water bottles, and with a smile that makes you feel you have to.
That’s the first step to being indoctrinated. The next is their copy of Mein Kampf.