An antique shop owner who put copies of Mein Kampf on sale has been cleared of disseminating hatred.

Michiel van Eyck, who runs the Totalitarian Art Gallery in Amsterdam, had his copies seized and had to appear in court after the Jewish Netherlands Foundation lodged a complaint in October 2013.

The sale of Mein Kampf is officially forbidden in the Netherlands and the public prosecution had sought a €1,000 fine. In November 2014 a judge decided Van Eyck should not be punished but he has had to wait another year to be acquitted.

Van Eyck said he had sold Hitler’s memoir as a historical artefact alongside busts of other 20th-century leaders such as Lenin and Churchill. ‘I don’t just sell Mein Kampf, but Anne Frank’s diary too – anything that is of historical relevance.’

The ban on Mein Kampf in Germany was lifted at the start of this year. When a new edition went on sale on January 8 all 4,000 copies were snapped up within hours.