“Notice on the Student House (likewise at all the universities): ‘When the Jew writes in German, he lies,’ henceforth he is to be allowed to write only in Hebrew. Jewish books must be characterized as ‘translations’. — I only note the most ghastly things, only fragments of the madness in which we are unceasingly immersed…
And all my faith in national psychology — where has it gone? Perhaps the current madness is indeed a typically German madness …
The fate of the Hitler movement will undoubtedly be decided by the Jewish business. I do not understsand why they have made this point of their program so central. It will sink them. But we will probably go down with them.”
— April 25, 1933
This post reminded me of something from Thomas Sowell:
“Jews in Germany were so well accepted during the 1920s that they not only achieved many high-level positions but more than half their marriages were with non-Jewish Germans. Yet, just one decade later, resurgent anti-Semitism under the Nazis drove masses of Jews from the country and marked millions of others for the horrors of the Holocaust. . . . If the politicization of race could lead to barbarism and genocide among Germans, no other peoples or society can be presumed to be immune.”
Actually, all these posts remind me of that thought from Sowell.
“And all my faith in national psychology–where has it gone.” For someone who is always expressing a confidence and faith in my fellow Americans’ common sense, these are sobering words. Is my faith any less than Klemperer’s? That my faith could be as misguided as Klemperer’s is not a thought I could comfortably entertain. I believe that it is not misguided, but what did he believe in 1931 before the horror began? It is difficult for a reasonable man to believe the unreasonable, for a decent man to believe the indecent.
David: Yes. Tis totally chilling.
His interest was in the great great culture of Germany which even I will not deny. The philosophers, the authors, the composers …
He felt that these artistic expressions and intellectual expressions were the true soul of Germany. Clearly, the fact that this other type of expression – the love of the fascist, the hatred of Jews – could also galvanize Germans into nationhood – was devastating for him.
We must continue to learn the lessons of Germany. Nobody is immune. We mustn’t forget that!