"Hitler's Table Talks" - extremist material or historical monograph?

On July 8, 2008, the Ulyanovsk court granted the claim of the prosecutor of the Zasviyazhsky district of the city to recognize the book of the English historian Hugh Trevor-Roper “Hitler’s Table Talks. 1941 - 1944” as extremist material.

The monograph, published in Russian in 2005, appeared in one of the city’s stores in the summer of 2007. According to the prosecutor’s office, “texts of an anti-Slavic and anti-Semitic nature were published on the pages of the book.”

The political science and linguistic research carried out determined that “the book contains a number of statements by A. Hitler that humiliate the dignity of the Russian and Jewish peoples, which is expressed in the statement of the inferiority and primitiveness of people from the point of view of their nationality (“Russians are beasts...”, “ the Slavs are a mass of born slaves...", "the Jew is a parasite...")" . It is also noted that “in the memory of Russians, the personality of Hitler is steadily associated with criminal aggression, millions of victims and mass extermination of the civilian population. His image is a symbol of Nazism, unconditionally condemned by the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal of October 1, 1946.” Researchers did not find any direct appeals in the book, so it was decided not to initiate a criminal case.

The English historian's monograph was one of the books that outraged the Ulyanovsk public organization "Parents' Meeting" back in August 2007, which became the first reason for conducting examinations and inspections.

In his book, repeatedly republished in the West, Hugh Trevor-Roper often speaks of a certain political “genius” of the leader of Nazi Germany, but despite this, the researcher notes that this “genius” turned into a tragedy for the Western world that claimed millions of lives.

At the same time, extensive quoting of Hitler's reasoning is inevitable, since the monograph is devoted to the study of various sources that represent more or less reliable transcripts of his conversations. What makes the situation comical is the fact that the books of both authors (Hermann Rauschning and Henry Picker), who directly recorded Hitler’s statements, were not banned in Russia.

Modern Russian legislation contains a direct ban on the publication of texts by German National Socialists and Italian fascists - without making a distinction between propaganda and scientific literature. This gives rise to the problem of the impossibility of disseminating and - most importantly - studying in Russia historical studies that in one way or another use quotes from fascist leaders, as well as fascist texts that are historical documents.

A similar precedent occurred in January 2008 in Volgograd, where the prosecutor’s office found signs of extremism in Joachim Fest’s book “Hitler. Biography,” which is a classic biography of Hitler, translated into many languages ​​of the world and republished many times.

Based on materials from Internet blogs

Sources

• According to the claim of the prosecutor's office of the Ulyanovsk region, the book by Hugh Trevor-Roper "Hitler's Table Talks. 1941-1944." recognized as extremist // General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation.Ru. 2008. July 8.
• What is it, our summer... // Gazeta.ru. 2008. July 10.
• THE BOOK ABOUT ADOLF HITLER IS RECOGNIZED AS EXTREMIST MATERIAL // Website of the Zasviyazhsky District Court. 2008. September 18.