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http://www.macnn.com/articles/09/11/06/highlights.discrepancy.in.standards/

Spanish translation of Mein Kampf appears on App Store

updated 03:50 pm EST, Fri November 6, 2009

Highlights discrepancy in standards

A Spanish translation of Mein Kampf has been launched at the App Store, observers note. Written in the 1920s by Adolf Hitler, the book is both an autobiography and a charter of the fascist, anti-Semitic policies that would come to guide the Third Reich. No other version of the book is available as a standalone app, and its icon is the Nazi Party emblem, complete with swastika.

The app's availability is unusual in light of submission guidelines for the App Store, which in many cases block "offensive" content. Specific uses of profanity will cause an app to be rejected, and a blanket policy exists against pornography. Mein Kampf should in theory be banned under rules against racism, but is nevertheless selling for $2.

by MacNN Staff

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iPod, iPhone, industry, iPhone apps, e-books, App Store

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Comments

martinX
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Sep 2008

+14

11/06, 04:05pm | report spam | close Reply |
Slightly controversial

It's only slightly controversial since Mein Kampf is an insight into the mind of Adolph Hitler (an important historical figure, in case you skipped Modern History classes), rather than a manual for racists.

Peter Bonte
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2001

+5

11/06, 04:14pm | report spam | close Reply |
Should be free

Its a historical document and already translated in the mid '30.

climacs
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Sep 2001

+10

11/06, 04:44pm | report spam | (1 reply) close Reply |
@Peter Bonte

I have no idea of the copyright status of Mein Kampf, but you're paying for the app, not the text itself. Just like how copies of the Holy Bible aren't free, you know.

As for the book itself available as an app, so what? People should be able to read even unpopular books. I'm not saying that if Apple decided to not allow MK as an app that it would be censorship, because it's not. Apple is not the government. By definition, censorship is a government act.

But I'm not going to get worked up over it being available in the App Store, like the person who wrote this article seems to be. I really don't think we have to worry about the rise of the Fourth Reich just because someone might read Mein Kampf.

Gazoobee
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Feb 2009

+10

11/06, 04:53pm | report spam | close Reply |
bad to ban

It's just so terribly terribly wrong to ban books like this and swastikas and all the other things that "nervous nellies" would have us ban.

It's been long proven that the banning of such material works entirely at cross purposes with the goal of eliminating the kind of world views they represent. If you want people to never repeat these horrible mistakes the best thing is to shine a big bright light on them.

Mein Kampf should be required reading in every school and library. And Swastikas should be drained of their power by turning them into something so prevalent that they appear on wallpaper and dress fabric.

tfantz
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Nov 2007

+2

11/06, 04:57pm | report spam | close Reply |
Not the issue

The issue is not the specific topic. The issue is that Apple is not public/transparent about its criteria... and thus anything becomes an issue. Apple is really s******* up this one aspect of their product. No one knows the criteria... all "books", no "books", subject to the whim of "Stevie" the Apple book reviewer? We just need to know.

msuper69
Mac Elite

Joined: Jan 2000

-2

11/06, 05:09pm | report spam | (1 reply) close Reply |
I tried reading this drivel once...

and couldn't make it past the first chapter. It's no wonder it was ignored by the Western powers when it was first published. It's a good example of how not to write a book.

bauhaus
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Sep 2003

+4

11/06, 10:58pm | report spam | close Reply |
shouldn't be banned

It has historical significance. Gizmodo already covered the uptake in app books on the App Store and how they're all pretty much wrapper apps for public domain books to make a quick buck by "application spam" companies. Apple seems to be going along with it.

On a side note, it's been long recognized the Mein Kampf wasn't really written by Hitler but was a book he commissioned from his "PR" staff for propaganda.

(and yes, I've read it when I was 16 for an analysis paper on racism and propaganda)

danm
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Nov 2009

-11

11/07, 12:20am | report spam | close Reply |
It's not only an historical document.

It's a book that neo-n*** groups all over the world including the USA, use as an ideological manifest. They also claim it's an "historical document".
I don't see way App store should help those fanatics spread the word.
Would you also agree to post Pod casts from Been Laden?

ScottG
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jan 2005

-12

11/07, 06:09am | report spam | close Reply |
NO F-in WAY!!!

Clearly Apple approves of the Death of 6 Million Jews, the Killing of Blacks, and a Clean sweep of all un-pure race!!!

They better pull this down off the site fast! History or not, it has no place on the iTunes Store. It's a Manual for hate. Worse is ANYONE can download this including children.

This is disgusting to all people to even post something like this on the store.

philbot
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Sep 2008

+5

11/07, 11:02am | report spam | (1 reply) close Reply |
^^^ IDIOT ^^^

now THAT's a knee jerk reaction

Inkling
Junior Member

Joined: Jul 2006

0

11/07, 12:06pm | report spam | close Reply |
Apple's Real Problem

Those who're suggesting that to reject this would constitute censorship or disrespect for 'scholarship' are missing the point. If Apple treated apps much like Amazon treated books, the presence of this app/book at the iTunes store would mean no more than the fact that Amazon sells also copies of it, including two English-language Kindle editions which can also be read on iPhones. Amazon, for all its faults, is at least consistent about its no censorship policy, when it doesn't run afoul of laws like those in Germany.

But by rejecting some apps and tagging others for their content, like it or not Apple is asserting that those who do pass muster meet some set of standards that they have set. Apple is claiming that this horrid book, in some sense responsible for tens of millions of deaths, isn't as bad as the numerous apps they've rejected. Arguing for genocide, in their scale of values, isn't as bad as VoIP over AT&T cellular was. That is why they're rightly in trouble for this app/book.

Note also Apple's rather mild rating for it: "9+ for the following: Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes." I assume that's for the passages where Hitler rants about Jews targeting young blond women for seduction. That rating does suggest that this app didn't simply slip by Apple's checkers unseen and unread. Someone who knows Spanish at least browsed through the book, noting those sexually tinged passages. That person, and thus Apple itself, were simply clueless about the real evil that Mein Kampf expresses. And given that the application has a swastika logo, it's not like the book's real theme was that well hidden.

My own take is that Apple's app examiners seem to be a rather strange mixture. There are the bean counters, who are focused on excluding anything that might threaten the revenue streams of Apple or AT&T. They recently got a smack-down over Google's application. There are the literalists, who enforce Apple's policies mechanically. Just this week MacWorld described their clash with a member of that group and his obsession with Apple's app naming policy.

And finally, there are those we might call the uber-bourgeois, who're upset by any s**-tinged content, but clueless about any other moral issues. Propriety and property seem to be the only two values they understand. Albert Speer, Hitler's armaments minister best expressed their point of view. He ran a slave labor program so brutal, some 10% of its workers died each year. He had no problem with that, but he did become upset when Hitler ordered that German factories and mines were to be destroyed before they fell into Allied hands. That, he wrote, offended his bourgeois morality. Don't destroy property and, if you cheat on your spouse, don't let the children find out about it, are the two chief values of the uber-bourgeois.

Finally, keep in mind that the evil doesn't lie in the availability of this book in German or in translation. One reason for British unpreparedness for the war was that a complete and accurate translation of it was not available in English until the late 1930s. The n**** weren't fools. They knew Hitler had revealed a bit too much about his expansionist schemes in the book and did their best to keep the British uninformed about them. The evil lies in not making clear what someone is getting when they get this book/app. In short this book, like Karl Marx's similar Das Kapital, needs to be sold with a strong warning label.

Amazon's own treatment of this book is mixed. Both Kindle apps have relatively high ratings, just over 1,000 for one and just over 3,000 for the other. Amazon does warn readers what they are getting for one of the two with a Amazon.com review that starts with, "The angry ranting of an obscure, small-party politician..." Unfortunately, the other contains nothing but the book's table of contents. Amazon is half-wrong in how they treat this book. Apple is all wrong. Both also need to be consistent (but politically incorrect) and treat communism for what is was, a evil just as murderous as Nazism. The fact that both have been tossed into history's dustbin doesn't mean that both should be branded for what they are.

--Michael W. Perry, editor of Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II

mr100percent
Forum Regular

Joined: Dec 1999

0

11/07, 06:41pm | report spam | close Reply |
Poor Apple

If Apple bans it, then they will be criticized for lack of free speech and people will criticize the closed nature of the app store yet again. If Apple keeps it, places like CNN will report on the offensive apps allowed into the app store (like the shake a baby one) and they'll be criticized for poor quality control. Their QC is sorta bad if they allowed the app in the first place and now it causes problems

ViktorCode
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jan 2006

0

11/08, 06:49am | report spam | close Reply |
Why ban?

If this book and swastika symbol are not prohibited in Spain why should Apple ban those? Especially when you can buy printed version anyway.

Also, I fail to see a lack of clarity in Apple's app submission guidelines. It is clearly stated that offensive apps are no go, however, (and that's what causing all the controversy) you may get lucky and push your piece of whatever to the store, because "offensive" is a highly subjective term. So, if you push your luck don't blame Apple when you got unlucky.

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Spanish translation of Mein Kampf appears on App Store

updated 03:50 pm EST, Fri November 6, 2009

Highlights discrepancy in standards

Slightly controversial

Should be free

@Peter Bonte

bad to ban

Not the issue

I tried reading this drivel once...

shouldn't be banned

It's not only an historical document.

NO F-in WAY!!!

^^^ IDIOT ^^^

Apple's Real Problem

Poor Apple

Why ban?

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Spanish translation of Mein Kampf appears on App Store

updated 03:50 pm EST, Fri November 6, 2009

Highlights discrepancy in standards

Related Articles

Recent Articles

Slightly controversial

Should be free

@Peter Bonte

bad to ban

Not the issue

I tried reading this drivel once...

shouldn't be banned

It's not only an historical document.

NO F-in WAY!!!

^^^ IDIOT ^^^

Apple's Real Problem

Poor Apple

Why ban?

Login Here

Register for our weekly email newsletter:

Connect tools:

Subscribe

to our RSS

Follow us

on Twitter

Most Read

10 Most Discussed

MacNN Marketplace