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Ping Tung

(3,937 posts)
8. I Will Bear Witness Victor Klemperer
Tue Oct 21, 2025, 02:09 PM
Oct 21

It's a day by day diary of an intellectual German/Jew professor of French literature from 1933 - 1945.

At first he believes that Hitler and the Nazis are to ridiculous to take power. Things change slowly at first. Then more abviously and swiftly as he gets fired from his teaching for being a Jew. Then te star. What protected him was his "Aryan" wife.

It is the most chilling book I've read about the Nazis and their rise to power. Klemperer holds nothing back. From his original disbelief of what was happening to the point of stealing food from his faithful wife. He was a secular Jew and thought that the Zionists were much the same as the Nazis.

He was certainly not an "heroic" figure in the usual sense but if his diary had been found he would have been executed. He a another Aryan hid the transcripts and she would have been executed too. He was a veteran of WWI and thought that was also in his favor. He was wrong.

If you want to really understand what fascism/naziism was ;ole is one.

Recommendations

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I Will Bear Witness Victor Klemperer Ping Tung Oct 21 #8
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Franz Kafka must have something appropos. Frasier Balzov Oct 21 #12
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