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Joseph Goebbels' Estate Sues Publisher Over Diary Excerpt Royalties

Posted by timothy on from the new-meaning-for-moral-rights dept.

wabrandsma writes with this from The Guardian: The estate of Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler's minister of propaganda, is taking legal action against the publisher Random House over a new biography, claiming payment for the use of extracts from his diaries. Peter Longerich's biography of Goebbels is to be published in May (Random House/ Siedler). Longerich, who is the professor at Royal Holloway's Holocaust Research Centre, maintains this case has important censorship implications. 'If you accept that a private person controls the rights to Goebbels' diaries, then – theoretically – you give this person the right to control research,' he said.

6 of 301 comments (clear)

  1. Unless by captnjohnny1618 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Up front confession: haven't read the article, but unless the diaries are in the public domain, isn't this pretty cut and dry? If the diaries are in private hands, they're in private hands and you need permission to use their contents.

    1. Re:Unless by captnjohnny1618 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Question that is to somewhat be annoying: but other's can publish biographies and make movies about their crimes? Seems like all movies that profit off of heinous acts should have to go to repay the victims of their crimes. I know that's not practical but if we're going to draw a line, seems kinda arbitrary to me. I'm not a legal expert though (no legal qualifications at all whatsoever actually. hah!)

    2. Re:Unless by garyisabusyguy · · Score: 5, Informative

      Certainly he had a place of power in the Nazi elite, and he used that place to drive home a pet project:

      During 1942,[1] Goebbels continued to press for the "final solution to the Jewish question" to be carried forward as quickly as possible now that Germany had occupied a huge swathe of Soviet territory into which all the Jews of German-controlled Europe could be deported. There they could be worked into extinction in accordance with the plan agreed on at the Wannsee Conference convened by Heydrich in January. It was a constant annoyance to Goebbels that, at a time when Germany was fighting for its life on the eastern front, there were still 40,000 Jews in Berlin.[2] They should be "carted off to Russia," he wrote in his diary. "It would be best to kill them altogether."[3] Although the Propaganda Ministry was not invited to the Wannsee Conference, Goebbels knew by March what had been decided there.[4] He wrote:

              The Jews are now being deported to the east. A fairly barbaric procedure, not to be described in any greater detail, is being used here, and not much more remains of the Jews themselves. In general, it can probably be established that 60 percent of them must be liquidated, while only 40 percent can be put to work ... A judgment is being carried out on the Jews which is barbaric, but fully deserved.[5]

      1. Jewish Virtual Library
      2. Kershaw, Hitler, II, p 519
      3. Kershaw, Hitler, II, p 473
      4. Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution, p 415
      5. Kershaw, Hitler, II, p 494
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...

      This goes well past any notion of free speech and well into advocating and driving on the process of genocide

      --
      Wherever You Go, There You Are
    3. Re:Unless by koan · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Troubling is that most everyone on the street will know what happened to Jews in WW2 if you ask.

      If you mention Pol Pot they have no idea who he was, if you mention the Armenian genocide they will also have no idea what that is.
      In fact the only genocide well covered is the Jewish one, rarely are the 5 million others killed alongside them mentioned either.

      Hollywood has produced movie after movie, I don't blame for keeping history alive to protect themselves, but arguing who can use the term genocide, and the lack of similar effort for genocides that followed leave me wondering.

      The singular retelling of the "Holocaust" leaves everyone else out and is quite often used for propaganda purposes.

      In fact, not to sound crass, Goebbels would have been proud.

      --
      "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
  2. get to the end of the article by jonsmirl · · Score: 5, Informative

    'Initially, he feared that Schacht would take out an injunction against the book, preventing its publication altogether. Determined to avoid the destruction of any books “on the grounds of a claim from Goebbels”, he agreed to pay her 1% of the net retail price.

    He said: “When she wanted to cash in on that agreement, I said that agreement is null and void It’s against the moral rights You haven’t been entitled to sell me any words as those words lie within the Bavarian government.”'

    The author agreed to pay a 1% royalty and then reneged when the heir tried to collect. Of course that triggered a lawsuit.

  3. Copyrighting History by JonathanP.Bennett · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It seems that the bigger problem here is that modern copyright is so unreasonably long, historical documents are still under copyright. Anything over the original 28 year copyright term is really robbing the next generation of history.