Klemperer – Language of the 3rd Reich – July 1934

Klemperer starts to get serious about studying, actually studying, the language of the Nazis. This becomes his new life work, since, as a writer, he feels he cannot work on anything else, at least while Hitler is still in power. Trying to imagine myself in the same circumstance. In the middle of being persecuted – give myself the project: Obsessively record the language of the oppressor. What a mind, what a spirit! This was his way of bearing witness.

Here is the first entry in the book where Klemperer starts to take notes on what he notices about the Nazi’s use of language. It’s fascinating. He calls his work in progress: Philology of the National Socialists.

“Philology of the National Socialists:

Goering said in a speech in front of the Berlin City Hall: “All of us, from the simple SA man right up to the prime minister, are of Adolf Hitler and through Adolf Hitler. He is Germany.” Language of the Gospels. — Something of the Encyclopedic style, somewhat modified, is now also present in the government’s edicts. It hints, it warns, it threatens — whom? The public is kept in fear, individuals or groups (which?) threatened indirectly. Decree issued by Justice Minister Gurtner on July 21: ‘Illegitimate attempts to influence the course of the judicial process are to be most emphatically rejected and immediately reported to superior authorities…’ Is that aimed at Colonel Hindenburg, or Papen, or a particular SS leader, or a group? Before, Eva used to say that the government’s publications were distinguished by ‘shameless candor.’ I always pointed out to her the mixture of candor and lies. (First 7, then 77 ‘put up against the wall’. — The fiction that only homosexuals were involved, that it had been an act of moral cleansing.) Now this new element of hidden threat. They say: We know everything, be careful! Yet this is also a flight into openness. And how does that fit with the constant emphasis that the people stand behind Hitler, the ‘revolt’ is over and done with?

Five aspects so far: (1) the mechanical style, (2) the Encyclopedic style of the emigres (Gusti Wieghardt says that in France they are called Les chez-nous), (3) the Encyclopedic style of the government, (4) the advertising style, (5) the Germanic style.”

— July 29, 1934