Now that fascism is on the rise again, we need to go back to the language that marked its ascendancy in Germay and Klemperer's notes are fundamental in the task of identifying the main characteristics of this language. ( )

Chillingly amazing book about how the official language of the Third Reich changed the language of everyone in Germany used even the ones opposed the Nazis. ( )

One of the most difficult books I've ever read (probably due to the rather precise translation), but also one of the most important. Part diary, part academic notebook, part lecture. Fascinating and horrifying. If you have any interest in philology or linguistics you MUST read this book. If you read German, get the original text - I'm sure it would be much easier to understand, but in any event, if you want to understand the seminal role of language in the authoritarian political process, read this book. ( )

Learn how the Third Reich misused the German language for its cause (and check whether you see any patterns repeating nowadays!)

"Ewige Wachsamkeit ist der Preis der Freiheit!" ( )

This book was amazing.

The Nazis lost World War II eventually, but during their 12-year reign they destroyed entire peoples via extermination camps, book burnings, and renaming regions and towns. At the end of the war, often there weren't enough people left alive to go back to their old town and remember the pre-Nazi way of life. You can still see evidence of this if you visit smaller towns in Germany: the old synagogue may be preserved as a museum, but there's no existing Jewish congregation that has replaced it.

As their control of Germany became more and more complete, the Nazis also constantly revised the image that they projected to their people and the rest of the world. The early-mid-30's seemed to have the most violent language for starting a war in the pursuit of Lebensraum, but the anti-Semitic language was conversely less murderous. And because the Nazis were putting out so much propaganda and revising it so often (Klemperer notes one popular textbook was on its twelfth edition after just eight years of publication), it's easy to lose track of how often the Nazis changed their story.

Klemperer's notes, written continuously during the Nazi regime, serve as a chronology of how the Nazis corrupted all of German life, up to the everyday phrases that people would parrot in the streets. Of how his erstwhile friends would gradually give in to anti-Semitic rhetoric by giving up, believing Hitler (many people believed Hitler would never lose the war, even in April 1945), or just picking up the common vernacular.

He talks about the weird Norse/Teutonic obsession of the Nazis, how they always took the easiest linguistic solution (if you can find an old German word to replace an obviously Latin or American word, do it! But if not, the Latin is fine), their strange obsession with the past. (To my mind, the current usage of the word 'cuckold' is a good English example of the same concept.)

For me, there was a constant undertone of sorrow, especially when Klemperer would talk about developing theories during the war, discussing it with colleagues and friends working in the Jews' House (or from his time as a professor). Almost all references to these friends and colleagues would include an aside of when they died in Auschwitz, or when they were sent to Theriesenstadt and then extermination in the Final Solution.

I highly recommend this book, especially if you know some German - it explained the comparisons a lot more to me, but my German is not strong enough to read a largely academic text. ( )