Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #483680 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-11
• Format: Abridged
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 637 pages

TIME OUT
"An astonishing level of detail, an obsessive urge to record the minutiae of horror."

INDEPENDENT
"A classic work of war literature and a document of enduring human value. Martin Chalmers has translated them beautifully."

Review
"The voice of Victor Klemperer is simply indispensible." (EVENING STANDARD )

"In the hands of a master, the ephemeral is perennial." (SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )

"One of the supreme chroniclers of the 20th century." (SPECTATOR )

"As a portrait of a flawed human being, these diaries represent a magnificent achievement." (LITERARY REVIEW )

"Such a vivid and powerful account of a remarkable life." (SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY )

"The voice of Victor Klemperer is simply indispensible" (Norman Lebrecht Yorkshire Post )

"Puts tears and blood into a political era that is otherwise difficult to dramatise and so to imagine." (MICHAEL PYE THE SCOTSMAN )

"His picture of life in the Cold War is an invaluable one." (COUNTRY LIFE )

"An essential guide to the most significant and terrible aspect of 20th-century political history, a living reminder of how fortunate many of us are never to have had to make such hard choices." (DAILY TELEGRAPH )

"They enhance Victor Klemperer's rare standing as a truth-teller" (IRISH TIMES )

"One of the most important chronicles of the 20th century." (HISTORY TODAY )

"An astonishing level of detail, an obsessive urge to record the minutiae of horror." (TIME OUT )

"A classic work of war literature and a document of enduring human value. Martin Chalmers has translated them beautifully." (INDEPENDENT )

Customer Reviews

End-of-life diaries in the early GDR
Hard to read this without a deep sense of melancholy. Klemperer remains convinced that his decision to stay in the East was the right one (the lesser evil) because West German had failed to de-Nazify itself - he seems to believe that it was not only run by former Nazis (more or less true) but that anti-semitism was overt and rampant there (probably false). As the end of his approaches he becomes less and less sure that he made the right choice, which is painful to read. At times he tries to be a Marxist, but ends up admitting that he has become an anti-communist (the more so after a visit to China).

He seizes on every incident that justifies this view to himself; but he also notes the many cases of Jew-spotting or Jew-hatred in the East. He participates in the academic and "cultural" life of the GDR, and to some extent the politics, but he clearly hates it. The book is least interesting when he is cataloguing the petty slights the set his career back, but his honesty in the diaries is always rewarding - he writes about the loss of his wife, his very mixed feelings towards the Russians, and similarly about the very limited extent to which he is a Jew.

In the last pages his physical deterioration is very evident, which only compounds the sad feeling of the end - coupled with his self-examination of his life's achievements, it's rather painful.

The book is a long slog (I managed about five pages a night for months) but I am glad I read it.