(And, yes, I am aware that people other than Jews died in the Holocaust.)

A work like "Mein Kampf" is virtually impossible to find in Norway. As a Master's student I had access to the specialty libraries of the humanities department (which includes History) at my univeristy and not even there was it possible to find a copy. But even in the 90s it only took 5 minutes to find an e-text copy on the net.

I can understand the urge to ban that book, just bury it completely, - in fact it made me physically sick just to read it - but there is one REALLY bad consequence of that: people no longer know what it says.

For all its hatred, the book sets down with remarkable clarity an explanation of the nature of the racist, fascist, "aristocratic" and spiritual beliefs of Hitler and the Nazis.  I know that Albert Rosenberg was the chief ideologue of the movement, but Hitler truly deconstructs racism with perfect clarity (and then declares it good. Shudder. ) He reconciles what to many seem like contradictions in racism. 

How, for instance can a white aryan racist who didn't have the mental faculties or moral self-discipline to finish high school declare himself intellectually and morally superior to jews or blacks who are doctors, lawyers, physicists and great intellectuals?  Hitler does it by declaring the necessity of spiritual justification in a christian context and interpreting it in light of the aristocratic principle. And if you accept his premise (which one shouldn't) it all seems to make sense.

But as a result of modern ignorance about the actual views of Hitler and the Nazis, people who in many ways share the less obviously evil views of Hitler construct a false model of  what they think naziism MUST have been and use that to hammer away at the very same people that the Nazis attacked.

Hitler gets referred to as a socialist (in the marxist sense) and he most assuredly was not.

Hitler gets referred to as an atheist, and only the truly ignorant could leap to that conclusion.

Hitler and his ilk are presented as being "inspired by" Darwin. When in fact he was inspired by Social Darwinism (which is neither socialist nor darwinist) and he was in fact livid that the pope and the catholic church had abandoned strict creationism in favor of a more darwinist view.

Et cetera.  So in banning "Mein Kampf" (by law or in practice) we have made it easier for components of Hitler's ideology to stay alive and even thrive.  If we had spent the last 65 years discussing, examining and demolishing the text in univeristy philosophy courses or on the public stage instead of ignoring it and hoping it would go away, we might have been better off.

How, for instance can a white aryan racist who didn't have the mental faculties or moral self-discipline to finish high school declare himself intellectually and morally superior to jews or blacks who are doctors, lawyers, physicists and great intellectuals?

He was neither white or very aryan since he was a Jew. (Removed part where I mostly agree with Knut, so itt is unnessecary to comment.)

Hitler gets referred to as a socialist (in the marxist sense) and he most assuredly was not.

But the other ones were not much more fun.

So in banning "Mein Kampf" (by law or in practice) we have made it easier for components of Hitler's ideology to stay alive and even thrive.  If we had spent the last 65 years discussing, examining and demolishing the text in univeristy philosophy courses or on the public stage instead of ignoring it and hoping it would go away, we might have been better off.

It is not banned. They are not sure who owns the Scandinavian copyrights. I have a copy, it's in Swedish and includes for some reason pictures from the Olympic Games  -33. That publisher sold it to someone. I don't think it belongs in university courses, at least I wouldn't attend a Mein Kampf course, that's just me, but let's say the professors don't want it, that could be why it's not there (?).

This is what I enjoy the most when it comes to discussing "mature" comic stories. If you point out how unrealistic, inaccurate and even downright deceptively propagandist they are, the usual retort is "it's just a story" or "it's just a comic".

At the same time if you point out that comics are becoming too serious and realistic, then people will insist that this is completely fine and natural, as comics have evolved to become "more realistic" and have "something important to say".

The end result is a work of often highly skewed fiction masquerading as social and political commentary

Only if you do take your political education from comics. It's possible to say something important independently of giving a precsie historical account, and most importantly, as others have been saying, don't believe everything you read.

Stories are just stories, even if you have a low opinion of people who say so. Stories have two qualities: one is that THEY ARE NOT TRUE, and the other is that they can help us enjoy thinking.

When we read Hitler, we don't read The Truth, we read what Hitler thought. How can you condemn ignorance (as you have), and then favour censorship (which you have)?

Certain categories of people should be protected from certain categories of knowledge, children being the obvious example. The rest of us should be free to know what we can know.

IMP.