Hitler and copyright

Artist offend everyone can

Adolf Hitler created in his life not only many evil, but many works of a creative nature. In his youth, Hitler twice tried to enter the Academy of Art in Vienna and twice did not accept it.
Nevertheless, the future dictator for a long time, before his service in the army, earned good money in painting. Adolf Hitler left behind more than a thousand artworks.



Of course, there is a great demand for paintings by such an unusual artist. In 2015, at an auction in Germany, paintings by Adolf Hitler were sold for 400 thousand euros.
The most expensive was the picture of the Neuschwanstein castle in Bavaria. The Chinese buyer offered 100 thousand euros for it.


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Right and hitler

The newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that, according to German law, Hitler’s paintings were allowed to be sold on the condition that there were no Nazi symbols on them. Here we are talking only about the originals of the picture, but what about the exclusive, that is, the copyright to the images?

The German law No. 104 “On exemption from national socialism and militarism” of March 5, 1946 in Article 15 states that all property of persons who are the main subjects of Nazi crimes, is subject to confiscation as punishment. Accordingly, all rights to the works passed to the German authorities.

Copyright and Hitler

Despite the fact that the paintings of Hitler go under the hammer for quite large sums, the copyright to the images created by the dictator, they do not care much about their copyright holders. But the rights to other works of Hitler's copyright holder, which until recently was the government of Bavaria, actively defends in courts around the world. This is primarily about the book "My Struggle" (it. Mein Kampf). Mein Kampf - the main manifesto of national socialism and the main literary creation of Hitler.

Until 1945, the copyright of the book by the publisher of the NSDAP Franz-Eher-Verlag, and then passed to the government of Bavaria. The government of Bavaria actively and successfully opposed the printing of books in many countries, such as Poland, the Czech Republic, and Turkey .
Copyright as an institute made it possible to successfully cope with the task of preventing the spread of Mine Kampf, since such specific things as the “federal list of extremist materials” are not in every country, unlike those or other standards protecting the rights of exclusive rights holders.

How it all ended

However, everything ever ends, and the validity period of exclusive rights is no exception. December 31, 2015 the works of Adolf Hitler went into the public domain.
This means that now anyone can print a volume of Mine Kampf (if you, of course, do not live in Russia or any other country in which the book is prohibited). In Germany, the publication of Mein Kampf with critical commentary has already been published; a volume in French is awaiting printing in France.