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'Mein Kampf,' signed by Hitler, sold for $64,850

Mein Kampf lays out Adolf Hitler's vision for a resurgent Germany after World War I along with his racist National Socialist political ideology. While copies of the book "Mein Kampf" are not rare, editions signed by Hitler are scarce.

  • By Eric Kelsey and John Russell Reuters

| Los Angeles

Copies of Adolf Hitler's manifesto "Mein Kampf" signed by the German Nazi leader sold for $64,850 at an auction on Thursday in Los Angeles, auction house Nate D. Sanders said.

The autographed copies of the two-volume work steeped in anti-Semitism are inscribed as Christmas gifts to Josef Bauer, an officer in the German SS during World War II and a participant in Hitler's failed Munich coup in 1923.

While copies of the book "Mein Kampf" are not rare, these 1925 and 1926 editions signed by Hitler are scarce.

Eleven people bid during an online auction that ended on Thursday evening for the signed books, which were estimated to sell for between $20,000 and $25,000, the auctioneer said. The winning bid includes a buyer's premium, also known as commission fees.

The same Bauer books fetched $25,000 in a sale at Bonhams auction house in London in 2012.

In the two-volume "Mein Kampf" (My Struggle), Hitler lays out his vision for a resurgent Germany after World War I along with his racist National Socialist political ideology.

"Mein Kampf," unlike Nazi insignia and some Nazi films and songs, is not banned in Germany. Its German copyright has been owned by Bavaria since the end of World War II, and the southern German state has prohibited sales and printing.

(Additional reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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