Joseph Goebbels's estate sues Random House over diary quotes
The estate of Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s propaganda chief during the Nazi regime, is suing publisher Random House for copyright infringement over use of his diary extracts.
Random House’s German division has been targeted for allegedly failing to pay a fee to use the excerpts.
The quotes from the diary feature in a biography of Goebbels written by Peter Longerich, a professor of German history who is working with Random House. The biography was first published in Germany in 2010, and is due to come out in English next month.
The lawsuit is related to the German edition of the biography.
Cordula Schacht, whose father Hjalmar was a minister in Nazi Germany, is representing Goebbels's estate.
According to reports, Random House initially agreed to pay a fee to use the quotes, but later said it was wrong to pay the estate of a Nazi war criminal.
Rainer Dresen, general counsel of Random House Germany, told the Guardian newspaper that he had suggested to Schacht that royalties would be paid should she donate them to a Holocaust charity.
He claims she rejected the idea, and suggested that the money should instead go to Goebbels's remaining relatives, descendants of his siblings.
Goebbels served as minister for propaganda in Nazi Germany.
His diaries, from 1924 to 1945, remain protected by copyright until the end of 2015.
Dresen claimed that the Bavarian government should own the copyright, as it does with Hitler’s own work Mein Kampf, which details his political views.
Copyright ownership of the original Mein Kampf, first published in 1925 and which translates as “my struggle”, was passed to the state following the end of World War II.
Hitler died in April 1945, with the war ending in September. His book is set to fall out of copyright as the ‘life pus 70 years’ term (copyright lasts for 70 years after the author’s death) is due to expire, although that term applies until the end of the relevant calendar year.
Earlier this year WIPR reported that The Institute for Contemporary History, based in Munich, is reportedly planning to publish an annotated issue of the book when it comes out of protection.
