Victor Klemperer. Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum letzten, 1933-1945. Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1995. 763 + 928 pp. 98 DM, cloth, ISBN 978-3-351-02340-9.
Reviewed by Anthony Northey
Published on H-Holocaust (July, 1996)
On June 13, 1942, a day after his apartment well-known TV program, which enjoys some pop‐ building had been raided by the Gestapo and he ularity among the German audience. It will soon and his neighbors had been beaten and humiliat‐ be published in English by Random House. ed, Victor Klemperer wrote in his secret diary: "I When Hitler came to power, Klemperer, a want to give testimony until the last" (II, 124). This Protestant convert, had for many years consid‐ outburst of grim determination the editors have ered himself fully assimilated and in every way a used as the title of his posthumously published German. Although he clearly recognized the dan‐ two-volume journal of the period 1933 to 1945. gers of Nazism from the outset, he, like so many Klemperer, a decorated World War I veteran, other Germans, felt that it would be a passing cousin of the famous conductor Otto Klemperer, phenomenon. In the beginning his diary is a true was born in Landsberg on the river Warthe (Prus‐ mixture of personal and family events and politi‐ sia) in 1881, the son of a rabbi who moved his cal observations. He notes his progress in writing family to Berlin in 1890. He gave up a business ca‐ a history of French literature in the eighteenth reer to study and become frst a journalist and f‐ century, his plans for building a house in the town nally a professor of Romance languages at the Doelzschen near Dresden, his successful attempt Technical University in Dresden. He survived the (at the age of 55!) to obtain his driver's license, the Nazi era in Dresden in part because he was mar‐ purchase of an automobile, and the subsequent ried to an Aryan, in part through sheer luck. His excursions in it throughout northeastern Ger‐ chronicle of the life of a Jew in Germany during many with his wife Eva. the Third Reich ofers a minute, often day-by-day Equal or greater space is devoted to the poli‐ description of ever increasing persecution. Since tics of the 1930s. Time and again Klemperer notes its appearance last year, thirty-four years after his his belief and that of many others, Jews and Chris‐ death, the book has gone through eight printings tians, that the Nazis cannot last. Rumors abound‐ in Germany and was featured in December on ed, rumors of putsch (especially after events like "Das literarische Quartett," Marcel Reich-Ranicki's H-Net Reviews the Roehm afair, the occupation of the foods were withheld from Jews. Being caught with Rhineland, the Anschluss), struggles within the an illegal caulifower could mean death. Tobacco, party, takeover by the military or the communists, hard to obtain anyway, was denied to Jews; they disastrous harvests that would ruin the Nazis. Yet began smoking blackberry tea. Hardly a month more perspicacious opponents of Nazism began to went by without another prohibition for Jews. At leave Germany and to emigrate to safer, foreign one point the author sets up an inventory of pro‐ climes. Although urged to do so himself, Klemper‐ hibitions, everything from buying fowers to own‐ er, who had been forced into retirement in 1935, ing pets. (Indeed, the Klemperers had to have hesitated, partly out of despair of ever establish‐ their cat put down to comply with the latter re‐ ing himself abroad. His mastery of the spoken lan‐ striction.) Especially difcult for the academic guage in English and even in the languages of his was the restrictions on his use of lending li‐ feld, he realized, was too poor to allow him to braries. As an educator he labels it one of the gain a foothold in a new country, let alone climb most shameless acts of the Nazi party that it for‐ to the status he had enjoyed in Germany as pro‐ bade all instruction to Jewish children. For a fessor and houseowner. And in the end he was while he secretly tutored a Jewish boy, who, he too attached to his homeland, although he was soon noticed, lacked the most elementary educa‐ made increasingly aware that he was to become a tional prerequisites. pariah in his country. In late August 1938, after a In 1940 Jews were forced into selected "Jew- pleasant outing in his newly acquired car he houses" (Judenhaeuser) in Dresden, not a ghetto writes, "How beautiful Germany would be, if one in the traditional sense, since they were not all lo‐ could still feel oneself a German and feel German cated in one particular area. Klemperer himself with pride. (Five minutes ago I read the newly had to move three times. Assembled in various in‐ promulgated law about Jewish given names. It dividual buildings, they were easy targets for the would be laughable, if one couldn't lose one's rea‐ Gestapo, who conducted regular house searches. son over it. The new names are for the most part Agents of that dreaded police organization would not Old Testament names but curious sounding barge into an apartment and under a steady Yiddish or ghetto-names, in the direction of Fran‐ stream of spit and verbal abuse they would--with zos, Kompert. So I myself am required to inform or without the excuse of searching for contra‐ the civil registries of Landsberg and Berlin as well band--devastate an apartment, upsetting furni‐ as the Community of Doelzschen that I am called ture, tearing out clothes, books, papers, overturn‐ Victor-Israel and must sign ofcial letters in this ing open containers of food. That was the sce‐ manner. Whether Eva has to use Eva-Sara, I still nario, if the Jewish apartment dwellers were have to determine)" (I, 419). lucky. If they were not, they were robbed of mon‐ The most difcult time period began after the ey, valuables, or scarce food, beaten unmercifully, Kristallnacht and intensifed progressively to the and perhaps ordered to Gestapo headquarters unbearable after the war began. In the years be‐ near the main railway station for another round fore hostilities came to German soil in the form of of maltreatment. Incarceration or deportation extensive Allied bombing, bureaucracy had more were also threatening possibilities. Klemperer too time to occupy itself with the persecution of Jews. spent an hour of humiliation in Gesatpo ofces, There were privations in the area of food distribu‐ and his apartment building was subjected to a tion. Jews were soon banned from all restaurants. number of visitations; he was lucky enough to ex‐ Eva Klemperer was still able to glean a meager perience only one himself (the one mentioned at meal here and there in restaurants on her daily the beginning of this review). Yet he also had to trek into town to collect food supplies. Certain deal with the misery of other victims. A woman in
2 H-Net Reviews his apartment building, Mrs. Pick, in her late sev‐ gining of the Nazi era, so many people believed enties, tried to commit suicide after being beaten that this was a regime that in war had once again up in a Gestapo raid. Klemperer tried to talk her overextended itself to such a great degree that its out of it and called for help to have her revived demise was imminent. So there were many whis‐ when she overdosed on Veronal. (Her second at‐ pered encouragements by passers-by: "Chin up! It tempt in August 1942 shortly before her sched‐ won't last long." uled deportation was successful.) German youth fares poorly. The children he Yet for all the persecution he and his wife en‐ meets, usually in groups, often wearing HitlerY‐ dured, there are many instances when Germans outh uniforms, invariably take the opportunity to showed solidarity with Jews and tried to help taunt the Jew. (The older adolescents, however, them. When threatened with having to sell his pass by without molesting him.) Klemperer real‐ house (at a ridiculously low price), Klemperer en‐ ized that it would take a long time to detoxify gaged the lawyer Dr. Heise as "Aryan administra‐ these young minds. The German working class tor," who repeatedly staved of the necessity of a makes a much better showing, as the following in‐ sale, until he was removed from the case for be‐ cident indicates. The diarist writes, "An older ing too friendly to Jews. His successor, a Dr. man, probably master in a manual trade, came to‐ Richter, was, however, just as friendly and again ward me. 'I guess you're working out here?' 'Yes, used legal tricks to delay the forced sale of the as snow shoveler.' 'But you're already somewhat house. He even made plans to hide Klemperer older, aren't you?' 'I am sixty.' He, to himself, pas‐ when--as they all expected--the wholesale open sionately under his breath, while walking on: slaughter of Jews in the streets would begin dur‐ 'Those bastards, those cursed, goddamned bas‐ ing the disintegration of the Third Reich. Richter's tards'" (II, 39). But members of the upper class reward for his all-too-close relations with Jews showed compassion too. "On the park way of the was Buchenwald. In the various jobs he was com‐ Lothringer Strasse as I came back from the ceme‐ pelled to take, shoveling snow or in a factory tery on Sunday afternoon an old gentleman-- packaging herbal teas and remedies, Klemperer white goatee, approximately seventy, retired high‐ was treated humanely. Even in jail, where he er ranking civil servant--came right across the spent a week as punishment for failing to darken path toward me, stretched out his hand to me, his apartment window during an air raid alarm, and said with a certain ceremoniality: 'I saw your there were moments of rough-edged kindness star and I greet you, I condemn this ostracism of a from the guards. (One suspects that the author's race, and many others do so likewise.' I: 'That's former social status as a professor may have very kind of you--but you're not allowed to talk evoked vestiges of respect and contributed to his with me; it can cost me my life and bring you into survival.) prison.'--Yes, but he wanted to, he had to tell me Klemperer records--as much as his restricted that" (II, 406). situation allowed--the attitude of the everyday Klemperer, the intellectual, tried to read as German toward the Nazis, the war, toward the much Nazi literature as possible: newspapers, Jews and the Germans' treatment of them. "Vox books and articles by Rosenberg and Goebbels, es‐ populi" or "voces populi" he often labels these pecially articles from the magazines Der Freiheit‐ gleanings of public opinion (pro-Nazi and anti- skampf and Das Reich, in order to get for himself Nazi, philo-Semitic and anti-Semitic) and fre‐ a clearer idea of the mentality of his oppressors. quently questions what the true sentiment of the The philologist assiduously collected newly coined general populace might be. As before, at the be‐ words and expressions of the new empire, exam‐
3 H-Net Reviews ples of what he calls "lingua tertii imperii," the ti‐ ly among the German populace or whether it is tle he chose after the war for his book on the lan‐ news that reached only a few people--especially guage of Nazism. At the same time the outcast Jews who sought out stories about the fate of fel‐ tried to educate himself about his Jewish origins low Jews. by reading books on Jewish history and Zionism. Almost shocking for him is the growing insen‐ With the latter he cannot reconcile himself and sitivity to the plight of other Jews he perceives in even repeatedly compares its dogmatic fanaticism himself. At the Jewish cemetery the sight of urns to the mentality of the dictatorial regime he lives containing ashes of people, some of whom he has under. had contact with only a short time before, in‐ In August 1941 Klemperer notes that one spires only terror, and that only for a while. He speaks generally of the euthanasia of the mentally becomes inured to the experience. The news of ill and in the latter part of the year he writes the death of Jewish acquaintances and the grief of more and more about Jews being deported to the their loved ones leave him inwardly cold, he East. "Evacuation" was the euphemism used. fnds. When he is called upon to tell others of the Klemperer records the news that, faced with im‐ death of a loved one, he sees that he remains emo‐ minent deportation, 2,000 Berlin Jews had com‐ tionally detached. This perhaps is indeed testimo‐ mitted suicide in the fall of 1941 (II, 92). (Mrs. ny of the necessity for many people in Germany, Pick's fate later brought that closer to home.) Con‐ Jews and Aryans, to adopt a callousness in order centration camp names like Buchenwald, Ravens‐ to maintain some emotional equilibrium. The sub‐ brueck, and Dachau crop up in his entries. Being stitute for his emotion is, of course, the diary it‐ sent to one of these, he realizes, is tantamount to self. It takes on the aspect of a chronicle, which a sentence of death, and he has heard the infa‐ the author hopes somehow, someday, to present mous words that mask murder: "shot while trying to the world. The words of the title, "I want to give to escape" and "death due to heart failure." He is testimony," are repeated several times. Klemperer not constantly aware of the wholesale, systematic continues to write doggedly even though he slaughter of Jews, although he hears of individual knows that if pages of his journal were discovered mass killings: "Paul Kreidl [a Jewish acquaintance by the wrong people (during a Gestapo raid for in‐ of Klemperer] reports--rumor, but imparted con‐ stance), it would mean certain death for him, or vincingly from several diferent sources--evacuat‐ for his wife, who carried the manuscript bit by bit ed Jews were shot in Riga row upon row as they as it was fnished to a physician friend, Dr. An‐ left the train" (II, 9). The name Auschwitz, too, nemarie Kohler, in a nearby town. Since Kohler, came to his attention as early as March 1942: "In too, was unpopular with the Nazis, her clinic was these days I heard named as the most terrible not the safest repository. concentration camp Auschwitz (or something like One cannot be less than overwhlemed by the that) near Koenigshuette in Upper Silesia. Mining immediacy of the writing at certain points. This is work, death after only a few days..." (II, 47). Later not a memoir, attended by the problems of retro‐ he notes again that Auschwitz seems to be a "busy spection, but a day-by-day record of uncertainty charnal house" (II, 259). In October 1944 he and terror that gains suspense from the reader's records the visit of a man named Konrad who, historical knowledge. One is all too aware of the from reports of soldiers, guesses quite accurately signifcant historical markers, the Roehm-Putsch, that in the East six to seven million Jews have the occupation of the Rhineland, the Anschluss been murdered either by shooting or gassing (II, and the infamous Kristallnacht, the outbreak of 606). What remains unclear is whether this too the war, the beginning of the annihilation of the represents information that is spreading general‐
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Jews, the Staufenberg plot against Hitler, or the bombing of Dresden. How is Klemperer's report going to present these events? one asks oneself re‐ peatedly. Indeed, the annihilation of the city ironi‐ cally saved his life by allowing him to tear of the hated star and submerge himself in the ensuing chaos that took hold in Germany until the end of the war. Although Klemperer's diary cannot pre‐ tend to be a comprehensive depiction of the Ger‐ man attitude toward Jews and the war, it tries to capture as much of the detail as possible. In the present discussion of the culpability of ordinary Germans during the Nazi era, this diary (cleansed, I hope, of the many typographical er‐ rors that mar the German version) will surely add one more piece of fascinating evidence.
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Citation: Anthony Northey. Review of Klemperer, Victor. Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum letzten, 1933-1945. H-Holocaust, H-Net Reviews. July, 1996.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=509
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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