BERLIN (AFP)---Extracts from Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" will go on sale in kiosks in Germany on Thursday, but with the text blacked out after a court ruled that reprinting the Nazi manifesto broke copyright laws.   

British publisher Peter McGee, who planned to publish parts of the anti-Semitic book alongside commentary from historians, said in a letter to readers that he would himself censor the text after the court's decision.   

"To avoid escalation ... I have decided to offer readers a different solution: In tomorrow's edition, which will carry the title 'The Unreadable Book' ... we have made the excerpts from 'Mein Kampf' unreadable," he said.   

"As soon as we have legal clarity over the planned publication, we will of course make it available in full and readable," added the publisher.   

Until then, only the comments from historians putting the text into context would be readable, he said.   

On Wednesday, a regional court in Munich ruled: "Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' may not appear on newsstands."   

The court ruled in favour of the southern state of Bavaria, which holds the rights to all publications from the main Nazi publishing house and had sought to block the book's appearance.   

"Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle"), written when Hitler was languishing in a Bavarian prison, combines elements of autobiography and sets out his views on Aryan "racial purity", his hatred of Jews and his opposition to communism.   

It is not banned as such in Germany but since the end of World War II, Bavaria -- which holds the rights until 70 years after the Nazi dictator's death in 2015 -- has not permitted reprints.   

McGee has been involved in disputed projects in Germany before. 

In 2009, he caused a stir when he began selling reprints of the Nazi propaganda newspaper Voelkischer Beobachter (People's Observer), again with comments from historians.   

In that case, Bavaria launched a legal challenge to the series but
succeeded only in blocking the sale of editions from after the war's outbreak in 1939.