Horror, Terror, Oppression
I just finished reading the third very large english language volume of the diaries of Victor Klemperer. He came from a jewish family but was baptised a protestant. He fought for Germany on the front lines of World War I until he was wounded, and went on to become a journalist, teacher and scholar. Until the Nazis took power, with their view of Judaism as a race and as a religion. Gradually he was forced out of his job, his pension, his car, and then his home itself. He risked likely death by having his treasured cat humanely put to sleep by his veterinarian rather than have him seized and killed by the government because it became illegal for Jews to own pets.
The fact that he had married a German (the government's 'Aryan') woman kept him alive while his friends and fellow Jews were being transported east. Gradually it becomes clear that these people are not being relocated but are being worked to death as well as killed outright. Whole families at a time. Klemperer had finally received his own notice the day before the infamouse Dresden fire bombing and the immense destruction allowed him to remove the star of David patch he was required to wear and set off underground.
The first two volumes cover the years between 1933 and 1945 and are the unique record of a writer recording not the status of the war but rather the daily life of the persecuted under the Nazis. He gives insights into the German as well as the Jewish mind and after much thought and discussion, he explains Hitlerism as a part of Germanness; a small, shameful but indelible part.
The second volume ends when he and his wife, after trekking hundreds of miles on foot while begging food and lodging every day, finally arrive back at the house they had built in Dolschen. Their Nazi "tenant" had fled and they had come home.
In the third volume, which covers the rest of 1945 until his death in 1960, Klemperer relates life under the Soviets in the "Eastern Zone." On the one hand he was at least partially restored to his former position, was named to the university chairs he had coveted, published new editions of his schloarly works as well as new pieces and speeches (he was also much in demand as a speaker).
The books move slowly and what emerges is a picture of an insecure man caught between his innate talents and accompanying feelings of inadequacy. No matter how many of his goals he achieved under the Soviets, he constantly felt that they were due mostly to the lack of intellectuals still in the East. His successes always reminded him of his disappointments and he was a man who was never at ease with himself.
After the war he embraced communism because he felt that the old Nazis needed to be purged and that they were the only movement with a will to do so. It wasn't until the very end of his life where he finally admitted to himself that the Soviet system and the former Nazi one weren't that different.
The chillingness of these books is mostly read between the lines and is very subtle in its impact. The focus is always on Klemperer himself, his thoughts and how the events happening around him impacted himself, his work, his life. There aren't many ruminations on the actual horrors of the camps or the sheer number of lives lost, or what other victims must have been feeling. Here there is the fear of the pounding on the door in the evening, announcing the arrival of the Gestapo (the "Spitter" and the "Beater") and the seizure of rationed food, paper and anything else they wanted.
This is the saga of the little horrors and the personal terrors that were his daily life in Nazi Germany outside the camps and are a record of a man struggling with himself, his time, and two of the most oppressive regimes in the last century. Fascinating, enlightening and disturbing. It deserves to be read.
The fact that he had married a German (the government's 'Aryan') woman kept him alive while his friends and fellow Jews were being transported east. Gradually it becomes clear that these people are not being relocated but are being worked to death as well as killed outright. Whole families at a time. Klemperer had finally received his own notice the day before the infamouse Dresden fire bombing and the immense destruction allowed him to remove the star of David patch he was required to wear and set off underground.
The first two volumes cover the years between 1933 and 1945 and are the unique record of a writer recording not the status of the war but rather the daily life of the persecuted under the Nazis. He gives insights into the German as well as the Jewish mind and after much thought and discussion, he explains Hitlerism as a part of Germanness; a small, shameful but indelible part.
The second volume ends when he and his wife, after trekking hundreds of miles on foot while begging food and lodging every day, finally arrive back at the house they had built in Dolschen. Their Nazi "tenant" had fled and they had come home.
In the third volume, which covers the rest of 1945 until his death in 1960, Klemperer relates life under the Soviets in the "Eastern Zone." On the one hand he was at least partially restored to his former position, was named to the university chairs he had coveted, published new editions of his schloarly works as well as new pieces and speeches (he was also much in demand as a speaker).
The books move slowly and what emerges is a picture of an insecure man caught between his innate talents and accompanying feelings of inadequacy. No matter how many of his goals he achieved under the Soviets, he constantly felt that they were due mostly to the lack of intellectuals still in the East. His successes always reminded him of his disappointments and he was a man who was never at ease with himself.
After the war he embraced communism because he felt that the old Nazis needed to be purged and that they were the only movement with a will to do so. It wasn't until the very end of his life where he finally admitted to himself that the Soviet system and the former Nazi one weren't that different.
The chillingness of these books is mostly read between the lines and is very subtle in its impact. The focus is always on Klemperer himself, his thoughts and how the events happening around him impacted himself, his work, his life. There aren't many ruminations on the actual horrors of the camps or the sheer number of lives lost, or what other victims must have been feeling. Here there is the fear of the pounding on the door in the evening, announcing the arrival of the Gestapo (the "Spitter" and the "Beater") and the seizure of rationed food, paper and anything else they wanted.
This is the saga of the little horrors and the personal terrors that were his daily life in Nazi Germany outside the camps and are a record of a man struggling with himself, his time, and two of the most oppressive regimes in the last century. Fascinating, enlightening and disturbing. It deserves to be read.
posted by Rick Ollerman at 10:52 AM
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