Dark navy cloth binding with gilt title on the spine. Gilt emblem on the front board.

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This is the most common edition of Mein Kampf, its only distinction is that it was taken by a British Tommy from Nazi Germany’s Last Leader: ‘Admiral Karl Dönitz’ during the Nuremberg trial. Regrettably, it is not signed and its authenticity cannot be proved by a signature. 

While Hitler was in power (1933–1945), Mein Kampf came to be available in three common editions. The first, the Volksausgabe or People’s Edition, featured the original cover on the dust jacket and was navy blue underneath with a gold swastika eagle embossed on the cover. The Hochzeitsausgabe, or Wedding Edition, in a slipcase with the seal of the province embossed in gold onto a parchment-like cover was given free to marrying couples. In 1940, the Tornister-Ausgabe, or Knapsack Edition, was released. This edition was a compact, but unabridged, version in a red cover and was released by the post office, available to be sent to loved ones fighting at the front. These three editions combined both volumes into the same book.

Unlike thousands of German civilians, soldiers, and Nazi party officials who chose to commit suicide after World War II, Dönitz lived to a ripe old age. Although several German generals were hanged following their convictions at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, Dönitz was sentenced to just 10 years in prison for permitting slave labor in German shipyards and allowing his sailors to kill unarmed captives. He was not held accountable for waging unrestricted submarine warfare against the United States and Great Britain. Despite being one of only two men to lead Nazi Germany, he succinctly summed up his attitude in 1946 from a jail cell in Nuremberg: “So I sit here in my cell with my clear, clean conscience, and await the decision of the judges.” Dönitz remained unrepentant for his Nazi beliefs for the remainder of his life. Following his release from prison in 1956, Dönitz wrote his memoirs and retired to the small village of Aumühle in West Germany. He died in 1980 at the age of 89.