The Japanese publisher East Press has sold 45,000 copies of the manga version of historical monster Adolf Hitler's manifesto, Mein Kampf, amid renewed calls to drop its ban in Germany. The German government enforces a ban on the publishing of Mein Kampf (in effect since 1945), through an unusual application of copyright laws.

The German state of Bayern (Bavaria) inherited the book's printing rights upon Hitler's suicide, near the end of World War II. As such, the copyright holder (Currently the Bavarian Finance Ministry) can prevent others from publishing the book there. The copyrights are, however, set to expire in 2015, the 70th anniversary of Hitler's death, and some government and Jewish figures (Including author Rafael Seligmann) have called for its publication under controlled conditions.

The Bavarian Minister of Science and Research advocated in June a "decently prepared and well-grounded critical edition" intended to counter "charlatans and neo-Nazis" who "could seize this disgraceful work when Bavaria's rights run out." Stephan Kramer, General Secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, endorsed the possibility of an annotated version on August 5th, "to prevent neo-Nazis from profiting from it," and to "remove many of its false, persistent myths."

Bavaria upheld the ban last month and rejected the Institute of Contemporary History's request to publish the book. Bavarian Finance Ministry spokesperson Horst Wolf commented, "Scholarly as the aims of the institute are, we won't lift the ban as it may play straight into the hands of the far-right."

Regarding the manga version, the ministry told Asahi Shimbun, "We have trouble considering manga as an appropriate medium for critically presenting this problematic material."

East Press editor Kousuke Maruo explained the company's decision to produce a manga version of Mein Kampf: "It is a famous book, but there are few who have read it. I think it is [studying] material for knowing Hitler, a man synonymous with 'devil,' and what sort of thinking created that level of tragedy."

East Press had no expectations of the manga's sales, but it has sold 45,000 copies since last November - above the average 35,000 sales their other Manga de Dokuha-series books have yielded.

East Press's Manga de Dokuha guide series spans 43 books so far, including versions of: Karl Marx's Das Kapital, Dante's Divine Comedy, Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince, Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Antone De Saint-Exupéry's Night Flight, William Shakespeare's King Lear, Stendhal's The Red and the Black, Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, and other titles.

Another of the Manga de Dokuha adaptations - based on Kenji Miyazawa's Night on the Galactic Railroad - has been adapted into an anime movie by Gisaburou Sugii and Group TAC.

Manga pioneer Osamu Tezuka himself created Adolf, a five-volume fictionalized manga portrayal of three men by the name of Adolf - including Hitler. Viz Media published this manga in North America.