Stephan Kramer, general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, told ZDF television: "I think it makes sense and it is important to publish an edition of Hitler's ‘Mein Kampf’ with an academic commentary.

"An academic and historically critical edition needs to be prepared today to prevent neo-Nazis profiting from it," Kramer said. "An aggressive and enlightening engagement with the book would doubtless remove many of its false, persisting myths."

The scholarly edition would be accompanied by a critical introduction and footnotes explaining and challenging Hitler's assertions, according to Munich's Institute for Contemporary History (IFZ), which applied this week for permission to reprint the work.