If you have not read the two volumes of Victor Klemperer’s journals entitled I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years
The journals are written by a Jewish man, an intellectual, a professor, living in Dresden, who was married to a German woman. A Christian. They go from 1932 to 1945, I believe, and they are incredibly detailed and terrifying first-hand accounts of the rise of the Nazis. It’s a perfect example of that old adage: If you put a frog in a pot of water, and slowly bring it to a boil, the frog will not know when to jump out – but will indeed end up burning to death.
You want to shriek between the lines at Klemperer and his wife: LEAVE NOW. LEAVE NOW. THINGS WON’T GET BETTER. RUN!
Klemperer had many reasons for not leaving. Of course. And then finally, it was too late to leave anyway.
As the noose tightened, as their options dwindled, as their freedoms were slowly but surely taken from them … he kept to his self-assigned task: that he would bear witness.
He somehow, somehow, maintains a cold analytical eye. As he loses his job, as his financial problems mount, as his circumstances are reduced – he makes up an enormous project for himself, which he calls THE LANGUAGE OF THE THIRD REICH. This is an incredibly detailed analysis of the hijacking of everyday language used by the Nazis (they turned words like “work” and “father” and “soil” into terrifying concepts). It is what Orwell describes so perfectly and chillingly in 1984. When language becomes meaningless – when you rip the words from their meanings, and deny people the right to use words however they wish – then you have fascism, totalitarianism. Without WORDS, people cannot THINK. Klemperer documents every example of this linguistic phenomenon that he can find, analyzing, interpreting. To me, that is the best part of the book. His deconstruction of the Nazi language. (Recently, the fruits of his labor was finally published. It is also fantastic.)
Victor Klemperer felt (and is) deeply German. His German identity was stronger for him than his Jewish identity. And his love of the German language is what, for me, sets this book apart from other memoir/diary-type books. His love of the language of his country, the language of Goethe and Thomas Mann, was destroyed by the Nazis and it will take generations for the Germans to re-claim some of that heritage.
Klemperer noticed this, as it was happening, and as he lost his house – his job – his future – as he and his wife were resettled into smaller and smaller houses – he and she survived the Dresden fire-bomb – and still: he kept these teeny notes of paper, locked away with various German friends, containing all of his notes about the destruction of the German language, and the German nation.
An unbeLIEVable read.
Thank you, Victor Klemperer, for bearing witness so ferociously. We are in your debt.
Unfurling below you are quotes from his journals. He kept a separate journal for his “Language of the Third Reich” notes, and I have placed that in the title of those posts. But again – his notes have now been published in book-form:
He was Werner Klemperer’s uncle, right?
Holy Petunia, red, this is powerful–and I’ve only skimmed a fraction of it. I do believe Klemperer is going on my library request list. Not to stray ;-), but we got a great library system here. I can search the catalogs online, request the ones I want, and pick them up at the branch I specify, regardless of which branch they’re actually in.
It’s sort of like Netflix for books, plus it’s just a pittance of my tax dollars–and, for a change, worth every last red cent and probably ten or twelve more).
We had a glorious weekend–hope you did too.
BTW–Is Klemperer related to Otto & Werner?
You guys – I am not sure about the Werner thing. Let me look it up.
I know Victor had no children – and pretty much his entire family emigrated.
But let me double-check about his relatives.
The only beef I have with the books is that the typeface is dauntingly small. I had to gear myself up to read it.
But well worth it.
i seem to recall that you mentioned this book to me awhile back. i think i’m putting it next on my list. btw, you must read devil in the white city…almost done, and it is a superb read!
Yes, “Colonel Klink” is his nephew. Victor’s brother, Werner’s father, did emigrate to the US before the war and became, I believe, the conductor of the Los Angeles Symphony.
His wife was a Christian, and the laws somehow kept missing him. He was a convert as well, and proud WWI veteran, but of course none of that mattered.
I have recommened these two volumes to dozens of freinds.
Also, don’t miss his “The Language of the Third Reich: Lti – Lingua Tertii Imperii: A Philologist’s Notebook”
The English versions are substantially edited down from the German, but in a good way. Outstanding historical record. I’m muddling my way through the post-War volumes, in which Viktor becomes a DDR-true educator, but then starts to chafe under the Communists, too.
JR:
It’s finally been published?? How did I miss it? I have been counting the days.
I post many of the entries from his LTI below … I knew they were working on a volume of it, but somehow missed its publication.