A national poll in Italy among 138,000 secondary schools and 3.5 million students has found that Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf is one of their top ten favorite reading materials.

The finding shocked the liberal establishment in Italy, particularly in light of the fact that Hitler’s book came out tops among some 10,000 different titles nominated.

According to a report in RAI news, a survey launched by Italy’s Ministry for Education to promote reading and discover which books are “most beloved” by schoolchildren, showed that several secondary schools included Mein Kampf in their top ten lists.

Alessandro Fusacchia, from the Italian Ministry for Education, referred to the choice as a “particularly nasty case”, adding that the book was ineligible for the vote in any case as secondary school pupils had been asked to select books by Italian authors published after 2000.

He said: “We are looking into it, but we are convinced that it was not a bad interpretation of the request, but rather a free choice.”

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