An Italian newspaper has been criticised for giving away copies of an annotated version of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf with a paid supplement to its Saturday edition.
, a centre-right daily owned by the family of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, sold a history book about Nazi Germany with its Saturday edition, and offered readers who purchased the book a free copy of Mein Kampf.
Hitler published the anti-Semitic manifesto in 1925, eight years before he became the military and political leader of Germany.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi described the decision "sqalid" and expressed solidarity with Italy's Jewish community, while the president of Union of Italian Jewish Communities, Renzo Gattegna, called it "a vile act".
The newspaper's editor said the decision to distribute the annotated edition of the text, which includes critical notes by an Italian historian, would allow readers "to study what is evil to avoid its return".
Editor-in-chief Alessandro Sallusti also said nobody could interpret the move to be an apology for Nazism.
"The concerns of our friends of the Italian Jewish community, who always have and always will see us by their side... deserve all our respect," he wrote in an editorial acknowledging the controversy.
A national newspaper in Italy (Il Giornale) is giving a free copy of "Mein Kampf" today.
New lows in "journalism"
Mein Kampf has been available in German bookstores since January, after the 70-year copyright expired in December, but only in an annotated version that is supposed to point out the inconsistencies and lies in Hitler's arguments.
The publication of other editions is restricted in Germany, under incitement laws.
The annotated version sold out within hours on Amazon's German site, and became a best-seller in Germany, despite little support from bookstores.
"It is considered to be a very significant self-help book," Atrayee Sen, a lecturer in contemporary religion and conflict at the University of Manchester, told Britain's Radio 4.
"If you take the element of anti-Semitism out, it is about a small man who was in prison who dreamt of conquering the world and set out to do it."
Mein Kampf is widely available in Australia.
