The controversial book about Anne Frank's alleged traitor has been taken off the market in the Netherlands.

"The book is no longer available with immediate effect," said the publisher Ambo Anthos on Wednesday.

He referred to an expert report published the day before, which sharply criticized the study on which the book is based.

Canadian author Rosemary Sullivan's book and investigation caused a stir in the Netherlands and beyond in January.

Accordingly, the hiding place of Anne Frank, who became world famous through her diary, may have been betrayed by a Jewish notary to the National Socialists in order to save his own family.

In the book The Betrayal of Anne Frank, Sullivan documented the investigations of a so-called cold case team led by journalist Pieter van Twisk, film producer Thijs Bayens and former FBI agent Vince Pankoke.

The knowledge that the traitor was Arnold van den Bergh was reliable with "eighty-five percent certainty".

However, according to the expert report presented on Tuesday, the investigation was based on speculation and possibly misinterpretations.

Dutch historians and representatives of the country's Jewish communities immediately criticized the results of the study as "speculative" and "sensational".

The publishing house Ambo Anthos, which publishes the book in the Netherlands, had already apologized for not taking a more critical stance and postponed the publication of further editions.

"We would like to once again sincerely apologize to those who felt offended by the contents of the book," the company said.

Booksellers are encouraged to return copies that are in stock.

The US publisher HarperCollins has not yet stopped international sales of the book, according to American media.

The German edition of the title was originally scheduled to appear on March 20th.

In February, the German HarperCollins publisher Jürgen Welte canceled the appointment and emphasized: "The decision that the book should be published in German by the HarperCollins publishing group was made in 2018.

We are working on a corrected, supplemented and annotated German-language edition to enable all interested readers to form their own independent opinion on the book and the associated media discussion.

We will not comment on any further questions until the publication date of the book, which has not yet been determined.” Welte has not yet issued any statement on the current developments.

The German Frank family had fled from the National Socialists to the Netherlands.

From July 1942 the Franks lived with other people in hiding in a rear building on Amsterdam's Prinsengracht until they were discovered and deported in August 1944.

Anne and her sister Margot died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945, her mother Edith died in Auschwitz.

Only Anne's father Otto survived and published his daughter's diary after the war.