Indian Publisher Pulls Children’s Book Describing Hitler as an ‘Amazing Leader’

A children’s book in India has been pulled from shelves for including Adolf Hitler as one of several “amazing leaders … who have devoted their lives [to] the betterment of their country and people”. The book received overwhelming criticism after it included Adolf Hitler along with other world leaders such as Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Barack Obama, and Nelson Mandela. Pegasus, the children’s books imprint of India’s B Jain Publishing Group has confirmed to The Guardian that the book Leaders is no longer on sale.

The book was originally published in 2016 and aimed to educate young readers about the lives of 11 ‘amazing’ world leaders who devoted themselves to their country’s. The publisher’s description of the book read: “Some are famous, others little known, but all of them energise their followers and try to make the world better.” The book also included the likes of Napoleon Bonaparte, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi, Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi, and featured Hitler on the front cover.

The book sparked outrage from readers across the world, including Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in the US who said that a book describing Hitler as “dedicated to the betterment of countries and people” would “bring tears of joy to the Nazis and their racist neo-Nazi heirs.”

Cooper went on to say: “Adolf Hitler was a visionary – his vision almost destroyed our planet; started the second world war, which left tens of millions dead and mass-murdered six million Jews during the Nazi Holocaust. Placing Hitler alongside truly great political and humanitarian leaders is an abomination that is made worse as it targets young people with little or no knowledge of world history and ethics.”

Before the book was pulled, Pegasus publishing director Annshu Juneja told The New York Times that there had been no prior complaints and that Hitler had been included because “his leadership skills and speeches influenced masses. We are not talking about his conduct or his views or whether he was a good leader or a bad leader but simply portraying how powerful he was as a leader,” he said.