I think the non-renewable 70-years-after-the-author's-death copyright law is Europe-wide and not just a German thing. As far as I understand it, a work goes into the public domain when this time period has lapsed, and that's it: it's then available to all. Anyone who likes to can publish it, but they will not be allowed to claim copyright on the text. Certainly that's the case in the UK and Ireland (or so I've been advised by PRS/MCPS).

I don't know whether you're seeing conspiracy theories or not, but if you are, then so am I. I can't think of any reason that I trust why someone should want to enhance, annotate or otherwise add to Hitler's book, which was written at a very specific time & place, and gives a clear message, bad as the writing is. Augmented material, if it's new, probably would be subject to copyright - though whoever wrote/published it could still not claim exclusive right of copy over the original work.

But I don't really like the smell of tampering with Mein Kampf after the fact. Why does anyone want to? It just sounds like opening a door to revisionism; or if they are "improving" the book without changing or distorting any facts - i.e. making Hitler more readable or more sympathetic - that's hardly better. Let the words he wrote stand as he wrote them, so they can be seen for what they are, without (and I can only regard it as this) cosmetics. Or worse.

Why don't these people just write their own separate book? Attaching it to MK strikes me - almost - as some form of force-feeding, or making sure people don't miss whatever it is they have to say. Hitler was the most powerful man in his country at that time: if he'd wanted his book changed he could have easily done it or ordered Goebbels to (who would probably have jumped at the chance).

Somebody go get Richard Bridge to set us all straight on what the laws actually are, in case I've missed or muddied something.