I Will Bear Witness 1933-41 Quotes

“To me the Zionists, who want to go back to the Jewish state of A.D. 70 (destruction of Jerusalem by Titus) are just as offensive as the Nazis. With their nosing after blood, their ancient "cultural roots," their partly canting, partly obtuse winding back of the world they are altogether a match for the National Socialists. That is the fantastic thing about the National Socialists, that they simultaneously share in a community of ideas with Soviet Russia and with Zion.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness 1933-41: A Diary of the Nazi Years

“We hear a lot about Palestine now; it does not appeal to us. Anyone who goes there exchanges nationalism and narrowness for nationalism and narrowness.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Shall Bear Witness: The Diaries 1933-41

“Curious:
At the very moment modern technology annuls all frontiers and distances
(flying, wireless, television, economic interdependance),
the most extreme nationalism is raging.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness 1933-41: A Diary of the Nazi Years

“I am not a dictator, I have only simplified democracy.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Shall Bear Witness: The Diaries 1933-41

“Always the same seesaw. The fear that my scribbling could get me put into a concentration camp. The feeling that it is my duty to write, that it is my life’s task, my calling. The feeling of vanitas vanitatum, that my scribbling is worthless. In the end I go on writing anyway, the diary, the Curriculum.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness, Volume 2: A Diary of the Nazi Years: 1942-1945

“I believe the pogroms of November '38 made less impression on the nation than cutting the bar of chocolate for Christmas.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness 1933-41: A Diary of the Nazi Years

“That is the fantastic thing about the National Socialists, that they simultaneously share in a community of ideas with Soviet Russia and with Zion.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Shall Bear Witness: The Diaries 1933-41

“The never ending alarms, the never ending phrases, the never ending hanging out of flags, now in triumph, now in mourning—it all produces apathy. And everyone feels helpless, and everyone knows he is being lied to, and everyone is told what he has to believe”
― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness 1933-1941: A Diary of the Nazi Years

“I am slowly giving up hope of politics; Hitler is after all the Chosen One of his people. I do not believe that he is in the least bit shaky, I am slowly beginning to think that his regime can really still last for decades. There is so much lethargy in the German people and so much immorality and above all so much stupidity.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness 1933-1941: A Diary of the Nazi Years

“Pity is such a shabby thing. I can torment myself with wanting to feel pity, and yet I don't succeed.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness 1933-41: A Diary of the Nazi Years

“The banal perception
- all the most profound perceptions are banal,
at most one man finds a somewhat more original expression for it than another man
- that we know nothing at all except what we have experienced ourselves.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness 1933-41: A Diary of the Nazi Years

“We had a friendly conversation, the man shook my hand, told me to keep my spirits up........ The next day......He stared ahead as he went past, as much a stranger as possible. In his behaviour the man probably represents 79 million Germans.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness 1933-41: A Diary of the Nazi Years

“We are completely isolated. We have heard nothing from Annemarie Kohler, nothing from Johannes Kohler for weeks.......A frightening silence.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness 1933-41: A Diary of the Nazi Years

“In the war I was subject to military law, but subject to law nevertheless; now I am at the mercy of an arbitrary power.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness 1933-41: A Diary of the Nazi Years

“I changed Lessing’s35 words – Anyone who does not lose his reason over certain things, has no reason – into: Anyone whose heart remains calm today, has no heart.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Shall Bear Witness: The Diaries 1933-41

“Their opinion: If at the cost of going backwards internally, he restores Germany’s power externally, then this cost is worth while. Conditions at home can always be made good later – politics is just not a clean business. [. . .]”
― Victor Klemperer, I Shall Bear Witness: The Diaries 1933-41

“I believe the pogroms of November ’38 made less impression on the nation than cutting the bar of chocolate for Christmas.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness 1933-1941: A Diary of the Nazi Years

“It is with a certain lethargy that I let everything take its course.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness 1933-1941: A Diary of the Nazi Years

“Head held high for the difficult last five minutes!”
― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness 1933-41: A Diary of the Nazi Years

“That the door fell shut, that the latch fell into place, did I know it with a nameless fear. At that second the eight days turned into 192 hours, empty caged hours.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness 1933-41: A Diary of the Nazi Years

“They've made a peace treaty of their own',
Eva used to say, when we passed an illuminated window.
(In reference to the strict German laws on light blackouts.)”
― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness 1933-41: A Diary of the Nazi Years

“I must make notes even now, I must, no matter how dangerous it is. That is my professional courage.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness 1933-41: A Diary of the Nazi Years

“....the regional mental asylum. The SS is in charge. They have built a special crematorium. Those who are not wanted are taken up in a kind of police van.People here call it "the whispering coach". The relatives receive the urn. Recently one family here received two urns at once.
- We now have pure communism. But communism murders more honestly.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness 1933-41: A Diary of the Nazi Years

“No victorious revolution without an idea. Certainly!
But just as certainly:
It is not the idea which makes a revolution, but privation which causes it to break out.
And once under way, it deviates from the idea.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness 1933-41: A Diary of the Nazi Years

“Very quiet and yet quieter living-for-ourselves.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness 1933-41: A Diary of the Nazi Years

“Socialism has now become completely or almost completely identical with Bolshevism; that”
― Victor Klemperer, I Shall Bear Witness: The Diaries 1933-41

“In a pharmacy toothpaste with a swastika. A mood of fear such as must have existed in France under the Jacobins. No one fears for their lives yet--but for bread and freedom.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness 1933-41: A Diary of the Nazi Years

“They have over-cultivated national rhetoric [. . .] they will have to undertake something.”
― Victor Klemperer, I Shall Bear Witness: The Diaries 1933-41

“Does one unceasingly talk about a thousand years and enemies destroyed, if one is certain of these thousand years and this annihilation?”
― Victor Klemperer, I Shall Bear Witness: The Diaries 1933-41

“I only have the quite childish horror of the grave and of nothingness”
― Victor Klemperer, I Shall Bear Witness: The Diaries 1933-41