Disputed Anne Frank book to be published in German
Christine Lehnen
February 17, 2022
"The Betrayal of Anne Frank," a book that has sparked controversy about who betrayed Frank to the Nazis, will be published in German in a revised and annotated version. A critic calls the project historical revisionism.
Who betrayed Anne Frank? The answers from a new book drew criticismImage: IFTN/United Archives/picture alliance
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The director of HarperCollins Germany, Jürgen Welte, has justified the decision to publish Rosemary Sullivan's "The Betrayal of Anne Frank" by saying that they want to enable "all interested readers [...] to form their own independent opinion of the book and the associated media discussion," he said in a press statement.
They are currently working on a "corrected, supplemented and annotated German-language edition," the publisher added.
Following the controversy surrounding the book upon its publication in English and other languages, HarperCollins Germany decided to postpone the publication of the German-language version. Initially planned for March, the publisher has yet to announce a new publication date.
Welte's written statement goes on to say that it will not comment on remaining questions "until the book's publication date, which has not yet been set."
Anne Frank: Betrayed, deported, world-famous
Anne Frank hid in the Netherlands for years, before on August 4, 1944, her family was found and deported to Auschwitz. The diary she wrote while in hiding has made her famous throughout the world.
Image: World History Archive/picture alliance
Fleeing from the Nazis
In 1933, Anne Frank and her family fled from Germany to the Netherlands to escape the Nazis. In the Second World War, she had to go into hiding under the German occupation. For two years, she lived concealed in the secret annex of a house in Amsterdam. But someone betrayed her: On August 4, 1944, her family was found, arrested and deported to Auschwitz.
Image: World History Archive/picture alliance
Family ties
Anne Frank (front left) had a sister Margot (back right) who was three-and-a-half years older than she was. Her father, Otto Frank, took this photo on Margot's eighth birthday in February 1934, when the family was already in exile in the Netherlands.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo
The hiding place in Amsterdam
Anne's father was able to found a company in Amsterdam. It had its headquarters in this building (c.). Otto organized the "secret annex" above and behind the premises. The family of four lived there from 1942 to 1944, together with four other people on the run from the Nazis. It was here that Anne Frank wrote her world-famous diary. The Anne Frank House has been a museum since 1960.
Image: Getty Images
A diary as best friend
From the start, Anne wrote in her diary almost every day. It became a kind of friend to her, and she called it Kitty. The life she led was completely different from her previous, carefree existence. "What I like the most is that I can at least write down what I think and feel, otherwise I would completely suffocate," she penned.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Death in Bergen-Belsen
Anne Frank and her sister were taken from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen on October 30, 1944. More than 70,000 people died in this concentration camp. After the liberation of the camp, the victims were transported to mass graves under the supervision of British soldiers. Anne and Margot Frank were among those who died there from typhus, at an unknown date in March 1945. Anne was just 15 years old.
Image: picture alliance/dpa
Anne's tombstone
Anne's tombstone also stands in Bergen-Belsen. This Jewish girl from Frankfurt had imagined her life differently. "I don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to bring joy and aid to the people who live around me, but who don't know me all the same. I want to live on, even after my death," she wrote in her diary on April 5, 1944.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Made famous by a diary
Her great dream was to become a journalist or author. Thanks to her father, her diary was published on July 25, 1947. An English version was brought out in 1952. Anne Frank became a symbol for the victims of the Nazi dictatorship. "We all live with the aim of attaining happiness; we all live differently, but the same." — Anne Frank, July 6, 1944.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
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Yves Kugelmann, editor of the Jewish weekly magazine "Tachles," remains skeptical. "HarperCollins Germany is inventing a new book genre: the annotated edition of a book with hundreds of errors," he told DW in an email.
"In a decent world, such a book would not be published because its content is wrong and it spreads rumors among the readership," added Kugelmann. "Thus, the publisher makes itself an accomplice of those revisionists who reinterpret history, put theses above facts and science behind."
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What does the book say?
"The Betrayal of Anne Frank" was published in several languages back in February. In it, author Rosemary Sullivan lays out the investigative work of a Dutch-American team led by former FBI agent Vince Pankoke.
The team had claimed in February to have discovered who betrayed Anne Frank and her family to the Gestapo in Amsterdam during World War II. A Jewish notary was named as the guilty party, with "85% probability." The presumption of innocence did not seem to apply in this case.
Critics found the book to be written in the style of a true-crime story, and the investigators' actions appear speculative and dubious.
Anne Frank's diary has been read worldwideImage: Insa Kohler/dpa/picture alliance
The debate so far
The book caused heated debate in the Netherlands. Historians found numerous factual errors. Jewish associations also sharply criticized the book's publication.
In response, the Dutch publisher Ambo Anthos apologized for the publication and announced that it would not publish a second edition until the team of investigators had answered the questions raised.
Anne Frank and her family were murdered in Nazi concentration camps in 1945. Only her father Otto survived, and after the war, he published Anne's diary, which has since reached millions of readers around the world.
