{"id":1102,"date":"2011-11-19T15:28:22","date_gmt":"2011-11-19T21:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wilsonld.com\/weblog\/?p=1102"},"modified":"2015-05-31T14:30:27","modified_gmt":"2015-05-31T20:30:27","slug":"i-will-bear-witness-1933-1941-a-diary-of-the-nazi-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/?p=1102","title":{"rendered":"I Will Bear Witness, 1933-1941, A Diary of the Nazi Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Klemperer, Translated by Martin Chalmers, 1999, Modern Library Paperback Edition, Random House, New York (First published in Germany under the title Ich will Aeugnis ablegen bis sum ltestn: Tagebucher 1933 von Victor Kempere<\/em>, Copyright Aufbau-Verlag GmbH, Berlin, 1995).<\/p>\n

First of all, this is a book that I wouldn’t ordinarily read but I found it in a box of books that my son had after taking a master’s degree in Eastern European History.\u00c2\u00a0 I picked some of the books out of the box thinking I would like to check them out.\u00c2\u00a0 I decided I would give this one a try.<\/p>\n

It was a moving book for me to read, although it was also very tough to get through.\u00c2\u00a0 In the first place, I don’t particularly like reading diaries.\u00c2\u00a0 The day-to-day activities of a person seem to drag and, in this book, there is no exception.\u00c2\u00a0 Secondly, Klemperer spends much of his time working on his writing and there is a great deal of detail about the subject of one of his books, the literary history of 18th century France.\u00c2\u00a0 Ughh!!!<\/p>\n

Where the book has impact, however, is in the depiction of the inexorable tightening of the restrictions on his freedoms by the Nazi regime.\u00c2\u00a0 Klemperer and his wife, Eva, are both Protestants, but he has Jewish ancestry and is deemed to be “non-Aryan.”\u00c2\u00a0 Because of his extraction, he is targeted with the same restrictions placed on Jews.<\/p>\n

Klemperer is also fervently anti-Zionist and considers himself thoroughly German.\u00c2\u00a0 He fought in the trenches in WWI and has a close affiliation with German culture – at least in the beginning of the book when the Nazis first come to power.\u00c2\u00a0 He recognizes very early, however, that the National Socialist movement is severely flawed and that Hitler is a madman.\u00c2\u00a0 His continually references his overriding desire to outlive the Third Reich.<\/p>\n

The cover of the book has a quote from Time Magazine comparing it to Anne Frank’s diary.\u00c2\u00a0 It says, “Richer and more disturbing than Anne Frank’s journals”.\u00c2\u00a0 There is some truth to that as it reveals a similar level of anxiety and fear.\u00c2\u00a0 On the other hand, this diary was written by a professor of literature versus a young girl.\u00c2\u00a0 Klemperer is a master of expression and captures his thoughts and emotions extremely well.\u00c2\u00a0 Another major difference is that Anne Frank was essentially isolated from the rest of the world while she was in hiding.\u00c2\u00a0 Klemperer and his wife are out living in society during this period (although his freedoms are gradually constricted).\u00c2\u00a0 He and Eva attempt to live\u00c2\u00a0“normal” lives while all of the lunacy goes on around them.\u00c2\u00a0 He has access to news accounts and speeches of the Nazis as well as the reaction of both Aryans and Jews to what is happening.\u00c2\u00a0 He is able to not only express his own feeling and reactions, but he also pays a lot of attention to the mood of others in Germany as all of this is happening.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like having a recorder playing back the events and the resulting effects.<\/p>\n

The attempts a living a normal life while these events are happening are notable.\u00c2\u00a0 Despite losing his job as a professor of literature at one of the state schools of higher education and being severly constrained financially, he manages to build a house, learn to drive, buy a car, go on trips, visit relatives and friends, go out to eat, etc. (at least until his house is appropriated in 1939 because he is “non-Aryan.”)\u00c2\u00a0 He continues to focus on the books he is writing, even after he is forced into confinement.<\/p>\n

The book ends suddenly at the end of 1941.\u00c2\u00a0 I have not investigated whether there is another volume that covers his diary from that point on.\u00c2\u00a0 The preface of the book tells of his eventual fate so that is never in doubt, but I am curious as to what he experienced between 1941 and the end of the war.\u00c2\u00a0 I am not sure, however, I will ever read that as I had such a difficult time wading through this volume.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a tough read, but ultimately I am glad I read it.\u00c2\u00a0 Heaven help us if a bunch of nut cases ever manage to take over power here!\"four<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Klemperer, Translated by Martin Chalmers, 1999, Modern Library Paperback Edition, Random House, New York (First published in Germany under the title Ich will Aeugnis ablegen bis sum ltestn: Tagebucher 1933 von Victor Kempere, Copyright Aufbau-Verlag GmbH, Berlin, 1995). …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,14],"tags":[18,16,38,21],"class_list":["post-1102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-four-star","tag-memoir","tag-non-fiction","tag-politics","tag-wwii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1102"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1103,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102\/revisions\/1103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}