Victor Klemperer

Victor Klemperer (Landsberg (Prussia) 1881-1960), decorated veteran of World War I, businessman, journalist and eventually a Professor of Literature, specialising in the French Enlightenment at the Dresden University of Technology, specialised in the literature of the XVIIIth Century. He was the son of a rabbi, and cousin to the famous conductor Otto Klemperer and brother to the surgeon Georg Klemperer, who was a physician of Lenin.

Related Topics:
Prussia - 1881 - 1960 - World War I - Literature - Dresden University of Technology - XVIIIth Century - Rabbi - Otto Klemperer - Lenin

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Klemperer was a converted Protestant of Jewish descent and his life started to worsen considerably after the rise of the Nazis to power in 1933. Klemperer had kept a diary since before 1933, but from there, his notes took the "SOS message to self" connotation which would turn into LTI - Lingua Tertii Imperii.

Related Topics:
Protestant - Jewish - Nazi - 1933 - LTI - Lingua Tertii Imperii

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From 1935, under the Nuremberg Laws of Citizenship and Race, he was deprived of his academic title, and forced to work in a factory. Since his wife was "Aryan", Klemperer dodged deportation for most of the war, but was forced to live a miserable life in a ghetto (Judenhaus), where he was routinely questioned, mistreated and humiliated by the Gestapo.

Related Topics:
1935 - Nuremberg Laws of Citizenship and Race - Aryan - Ghetto

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Due to be deported on February 14th, 1945, he used the confusion created by Allied bombings that night to remove his yellow star, join a refugee column, and escape into American-controlled territory. He and his wife survived and Klemperer details in his diaries their return (largely on foot through Bavaria and Eastern Germany) to their house on the outskirts of Dresden. They managed to reclaim their house, which had been "aryanised" under the Nazis, in Dresden-Dolzschen.

Related Topics:
February 14 - 1945 - Allied bombings - Yellow star - Bavaria - Dresden

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Klemperer went on to become a significant post-war cultural figure in East Germany, teaching at the universities of Greifswald, Berlin and Halle. He became a delegate of the Cultural Union in the GDR Parliament ("Volkskammer") in 1950.

Related Topics:
East Germany - Greifswald - Berlin - Halle - GDR - Volkskammer

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Klemperer's diary was published in 1995 as Tagebücher (Berlin, Aufbau). The English translation appeared in two volumes: I Shall Bear Witness (1933 to 1941) and To The Bitter End (1942 to 1945).

Related Topics:
1995 - English - 1933 - 1941 - 1942 - 1945

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