Victor Klemperer Libri

Victor Klemperer è uno stimato professore universitario a Dresda quando nel gennaio 1933 i nazisti prendono il potere in Germania. Di padre ebreo e madre protestante, Kempler è lui stesso di religione protestante, di opinioni politiche moderate e perfettamente inserito nella società tedesca non ebraica. L'avvento al potere di Hitler cambia improvvisamente la sua vita: non solo egli deve prendere atto di di non essere più un tedesco, ma si accorge che anche il suo entourage accademico e molti suoi conoscenti e amici cominciano a considerarlo un estraneo. Sollevato dal suo incarico universitario, ridotto in povertà, angariato in ogni modo, Kemplerer grazie al suo statuto di "misto" non verrà deportato, ma assisterà fino all'ultimo alla rovina della Germania.

"Dovunque, ogni due minuti, ogni due righe, arrivo sempre alla stessa conclusione: tutto barcolla, tutto vacilla, ovunque si vada si annaspa..." Il libro è il diario scritto dall'ebreo tedesco Victor Klemperer (1881-1960) durante un anno cruciale - il 1945 - per la storia della Germania e del mondo. Fa parte di uno sterminato diario (circa cinquemila pagine, uno dei più grandi diari mai scritti) che l'autore ha tenuto per cinquantanni e che, nascosto presso un'amica nel periodo della più dura persecuzione antiebraica e della guerra, è miracolosamente scampato al disastro. Leggere questo libro è un'esperienza rara.

Nessun libro può sostituire il diario tragico di Klemperer: in esso è l'esperienza della distruzione a parlare, la violenza quotidiana della predicazione di morte. I lemmi, che egli sceglie per l'illustrazione del processo di formazione di una nuova lingua del potere, sono offerti alla sua intelligenza di filologo dalla sua vita quotidiana di perseguitato e si confrontano con la progressiva riduzione della sua esistenza a quella di un testimone. È un libro dal vero, che ci riconduce, con la meticolosa pedanteria di un cronista, ad una storia aberrante come fosse ancora un presente. (Michele Ranchetti)

The second volume of the diaries of Victor Klemperer, a Jew in Dresden who survived the war and whose diaries between 1933 and 1945 have been hailed as one of the most important chronicles of Nazi Germany ever published. schovat popis

A publishing sensation, the publication of Victor Klemperer's diaries brings to light one of the most extraordinary documents of the Nazi period. 'A classic ... Klemperer's diary deserves to rank alongside that of Anne Frank's' SUNDAY TIMES 'I can't remember when I read a more engrossing book' Antonia Fraser 'Not dissimilar in its cumulative power to Primo Levi's, is a devastating account of man's inhumanity to man' LITERARY REVIEW The son of a rabbi, Klemperer was by 1933 a professor of languages at Dresden. Over the next decade he, like other German Jews, lost his job, his house and many of his friends. Klemperer remained loyal to his country, determined not to emigrate, and convinced that each successive Nazi act against the Jews must be the last. Saved for much of the war from the Holocaust by his marriage to a gentile, he was able to escape in the aftermath of the Allied bombing of Dresden and survived the remaining months of the war in hiding. Throughout, Klemperer kept a diary. Shocking and moving by turns, it is a remarkable and important account.

A publishing sensation in German, the publication of Victor Klemperer's diaries brings to light one of the most extraordinary documents of the Nazi period.

These diaries of a Jew in Nazi Germany form the most important document to emerge from that period since the publication of The Diary of Anne Frank.

Munich 1919 is a vivid portrayal of the chaos that followed World War I and the collapse of the Munich Council Republic by one of the most perceptive chroniclers of German history. Victor Klemperer provides a moving and thrilling account of what turned out to be a decisive turning point in the fate of a nation, for the revolution of 1918-9 not only produced the first German democracy, it also heralded the horrors to come. With the directness of an educated and independent young man, Klemperer turned his hand to political journalism, writing astute, clever and linguistically brilliant reports in the beleaguered Munich of 1919. He sketched intimate portraits of the people of the hour, including Erich Mühsam, Max Levien and Kurt Eisner, and took the measure of the events around him with a keen eye. These observations are made ever more poignant by the inclusion of passages from his later memoirs. In the midst of increasing persecution under the Nazis he reflected on the fateful year 1919, the growing threat of antisemitism, and the acquaintances he made in the period, some of whom would later abandon him, while others remained loyal. Klemperer's account once again reveals him to be a fearless and deeply humane recorder of German history. Munich 1919 will be essential reading for all those interested in 20th century history, constituting a unique witness to events of the period.

'The third and final volume of the diaries of Victor Klemperer, a Jew in Dresden who survived the war and whose 1933-1945 diaries have already been hailed as one of the twentieth century's most important chronicles. In June 1945 Victor and Eva Klemperer return to their home in the Dresden suburbs, a place last seen in 1940 when they were forced to leave it and live in a Jews' House. Feelings of fairy-tale euphoria alternate with much darker moods. The immediate postwar period produces shocks and revelations: some people have behaved better than Klemperer had believed, others much worse......' (Back of book)

The publication of Victor Klemperer's secret diaries brings to light one of the most extraordinary documents of the Nazi period. In its cool, lucid style and power of observation, said The New York Times, it is the best written, most evocative, most observant record of daily life in the Third Reich. I Will Bear Witness is a work of literature as well as a revelation of the day-by-day horror of the Nazi years. A Dresden Jew, a veteran of World War I, a man of letters and historian of great sophistication, Klemperer recognized the danger of Hitler as early as 1933. His diaries, written in secrecy, provide a vivid account of everyday life in Hitler's Germany. What makes this book so remarkable, aside from its literary distinction, is Klemperer's preoccupation with the thoughts and actions of ordinary Germans: Berger the greengrocer, who was given Klemperer's house (anti-Hitlerist, but of course pleased at the good exchange), the fishmonger, the baker, the much-visited dentist. All offer their thoughts and theories on the progress of the war: Will England hold out? Who listens to Goebbels? How much longer will it last? This symphony of voices is ordered by the brilliant, grumbling Klemperer, struggling to complete his work on eighteenth-century France while documenting the ever- tightening Nazi grip. He loses first his professorship and then his car, his phone, his house, even his typewriter, and is forced to move into a Jews' House (the last step before the camps), put his cat to death (Jews may not own pets), and suffer countless other indignities. Despite the danger his diaries would pose if discovered, Klemperer sees it as his duty to record events. I continue to write, he notes in 1941 after a terrifying run-in with the police. This is my heroics. I want to bear witness, precise witness, until the very end. When a neighbor remarks that, in his isolation, Klemperer will not be able to cover the main events of the war, he writes: It's not the big things that are important, but the everyday life of tyranny, which may be forgotten. A thousand mosquito bites are worse than a blow on the head. I observe, I note, the mosquito bites. This book covers the years from 1933 to 1941. Volume Two, from 1941 to 1945, will be published in 1999.