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angry that Georg who, "apparently considers [me] without honor by
staying in Germany," left without saying good-bye. Another time, he
notes that he is "being punished for his former nationalism." But he kept
clinging to the belief that German liberalism would win out, identified
with his country, and was among those Jews who assumed that as veterans
of the First World War they would be safe. Also, he had been ambivalent
about his Jewishness, was assimilated, and did not practice any religion.
By the time he came around and wanted to emigrate, in September 1938,
he still says that despite the Nazi disaster he would continue to love the
German language:
No one can deprive me of my Gennan culture, but my nationalism and patriot–
ism are gone forever. Now, my thinking is entirely Voltairian and cosmopolitan.
. . . Voltaire and Montesquieu more than ever are my people. [my translation]
When he tries to receive an affidavit from America, he regrets not having
children who could facilitate his and Eva's departure - by guaranteeing to
support them. In December 1938, his nephew in Chicago did send him
an affidavit, but by then it was too late.
Over and over again, Klemperer marvels at the English (less so at the
French) for not stopping Hitler's early conquests - the Saar, Austria, the
Sudentenland, Czechoslovakia. He has heard rumors of a crematorium as
early as May 1941; on January 1, 1942 he refers to concentration camps,
and a month later is worried that his writing will land him in one of
them. He constantly fears being rounded up and stops going out. But he
is equally apprehensive while "waiting" for the ever more frequent house
searches - that so often entail beatings and arrests.
By 1942, Klemperer hears rumors that the Jews of Vienna and Prague
are being deported to Theresienstadt, and that suicides among them
abound. News that friends "have been shot while fleeing," or "have
passed away," become ever more frequent. He notes that "the tyranny
intensifies every day," that "Nazism is a cancer in the German body," and
that "poets and philologists know the language, but can't keep language
from telling the truth." He keeps close track about the state of the war,
notes the lies and propaganda in the press, and guesses at the truth by
watching out for new Nazi language. Soon, he considers a German vic–
tory impossible and hopes only that the war will end quickly. And he
mentions rumors of "a new type of evacuation ofJews into camps."
In 1943, Klemperer gets more and more specific about the ever tight–
ening living conditions, the misery, the hunger, the forced labor, the
posters of Sturmer-type Jews who "caused the war," and the endless
