A German court has upheld the firing of a Berlin government employee who read a copy of “Mein Kampf” during a break at work, Politico.eu reported Tuesday.
At issue is not the book’s controversial author, the late Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, but rather that the cover art of the employee’s copy — according to the Berlin city government’s website, an original edition — bears a swastika, a symbol that has been banned in the country since the demise of the Third Reich.
The city employee in question, who was seen reading the book wearing a city uniform, was “obliged to support the free democratic fundamental order of the Constitution,” the court ruled, according to Politico. “By publicly showing a swastika, an unconstitutional symbol, he violated this obligation.”
The copyright for “Mein Kampf,” long held by the German state of Bavaria, expired on January 1, 2016, and the infamous memoir is now in the public domain. A scholarly editions complete with criticism and historical context and published by “The Institute of Contemporary History” became a bestseller in Germany last year, reported CNN.
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