Introduction: The Third Reich
When Hitler assumed dictatorship of Germany and became the Fuhrer, he propagated Fascism, then prevalent in Mussolini’s Italy, under the banner of Nazism; wherein the State became all powerful and welfare was entirely in his hands. The Nazis came to power by promising to take Germany out of the post World War I economic depression. The treaty of Versailles was a blow to German pride, the country was reeling under all the war debts and the Great Depression was another blow to their economy. Germans were vulnerable and Nazi propaganda and the Hitler myth was successful in claiming total control over them, insidiously encroaching on their daily life. This has become evident from writings and personal experiences narrated by survivors of the Holocaust; notably the diaries written by Victor Klemperer between 1933 and 1945 which were first published in 1995. These diaries continue to generate a lot of interest in the field of social history primarily due to the intimate and minute details of daily life portrayed by him.
Victor Klemperer
Born in 1881, Victor Klemperer was the youngest son of a rabbi. He converted to Protestantism after marrying Eva, a ‘gentile.’ But he remained grounded in German culture and values. He volunteered for military service during World War I. After armistice, he became the professor of Romance Studies in the Technical University at Dresden until 1935 when he was legally defined as a Jew by the Nuremberg laws and dismissed from his position. He was also stripped of his German citizenship, academic title and military decorations. Spared from deportation to a concentration camp only due to his marriage to Eva, an ‘Aryan’, he was later compelled to work as a forced laborer in various armament factories in Dresden till the end of the war. His diaries offer an unparalleled view into the Third Reich from the perspective of one of its victims. They present a remarkable picture of a man who prided himself to be a German, being persecuted as a Jew. They give a human face to the travails of the German Jews as they are humiliated, ostracized and transformed into untouchables in their own homeland.
Klemperer’s diaries reveal in excruciating detail his life under Hitler’s regime; his obsession with the repairs of his apartment, his house building, frustrations over his unreliable car, his wife’s and his own health issues, his acute monetary problems and evocative descriptions of contemporary cinema and literature. But in the midst of all that creeps in his commentary on life as it changes around him.
On 17th March 1933 he says
We talked about politics – cautiously, since the windows were open.It is shocking how day after day naked acts of violence, breaches of the law, barbaric opinions appear quite undisguised as official decree. The Socialist papers are permanently banned. The ‘Liberals’ tremble. The Berliner Tageblatt was recently banned for two days; that can’t happen to the Dresener Neueste Nachrichten, it is completely devoted to the government
He mentions the opening of an ‘Office to Combat Bolshevism’ in Dresden and is shocked when it is announced that rewards will be given for ‘Important Information' and discretion is assured to the informant; that Jewish lawyers are forbidden to appear in court. On 27th March he writes “No one breathes freely any more, no free word, neither printed nor spoken.”
When Hitler became Fuhrer, he prescribed a certain racial criterion for the super race; he believed that they were the only people who had a right to be his subjects – blonde haired, blue-eyed, white Nordic features. The swastika became a symbol of power of these people and Klemperer was horrified to find “In a toyshop a children’s ball with the swastika” (30th March 1933). The Party started to indoctrinate children to promote Hitler’s ideology and started youth training programs for this purpose. With the creation of Josef Goebbel’s Ministry of Propaganda in 1933, a full scale Nazi campaign against the Jews began. School children were bombarded with anti Semitic messages to the extent that their curriculum books stated that the genetic, physical and spiritual features of the Aryans were so much more superior to those of the Jews that they have to reject all interactions with them. Every school day started with the children raising the Hitler salute to the Nazi flag with its swastika and pledging allegiance to the Fatherland and Adolf Hitler.
Alienation of the Jews and non-Aryans continued through the 1930s when Hitler came to power. On 3rd April 1933, Klemperer says, the only businesses that were allowed to operate had placards stating “Recognized German-Christian Enterprise.” In front of the closed shops sat men with placards which said “whoever buys from the Jew supports the foreign boycott and destroys the German economy.” But the people in general tried to circumvent that.
On 13th June 1934, Klemperer says
In Falkenstein one is not allowed to buy from a ‘Jew’. And so the people in Falkenstein travel to the Jew in Auerbach. And the Auerbachers in turn buy from the Falkenstein Jew. However, on bigger shopping expeditions the people from the one horse towns travel to Plauen, where there is a larger Jewish department store. If you run into some one from the same town, no one has seen anyone else. Tacit convention.
Life under the Third Reich meant that there were no individual rights. Any expression against the Nazi party was not tolerated. The Gestapo, Hitler’s personal spies were constantly on the lookout for traitors, identifying them, trapping them and then meting out brutal punishment to them, often resulting in death.
15th May 1933, Klemperer gives an example of the brutality by those in power
Everywhere complete helplessness, cowardice, fear. Annemarie relates “The garden of a Communist in Heideman is dug up, there is supposed to be a machine gun in it. He denies it, nothing is found; to squeeze a confession out of him, he is beaten to death. The corpse brought to the hospital, boot marks on the stomach, fist sized holes in the back. Cotton wool stuffed into them. Official postmortem report: Cause of death dysentery”
But the hysterical deeds of the government, “The endless threatening of the death-sentence, the arrest of hostages, recently the interruption of all long-distance travel from noon to 12.40pm: search for subversive couriers and pamphlets throughout Germany,” (13th July 1933) revealed the regime’s deep-seated insecurity. The Party’s totalitarian state rejected conventional boundaries of status quo political policies and relied heavily on irrational ideals and emotions. Hence the Nazis needed intense propaganda to sway public support to accepting and believing their ideology. They distributed pamphlets denouncing the Jews, making them responsible for the dire economic condition of the nation. They put up graphic posters presenting Jews as greedy money hoarders. It became compulsory to listen to Hitler’s bombastic radio broadcasts. On 19th April 1933 Klemperer quotes his friend Annemarie Kohler, who worked at a hospital “male and female nursessit around the loud speaker. When the Horst Kessel Song is sung, they stand up and raise their arms in the Nazi greeting.” By 28th July 1933, the Hitler greeting is made obligatory. “Frau Lehmann’s husband’s colleague dismissed on the spot because he did not greet with his arms raised” (10th August 1933).
4th August 1934 Klemperer writes
Hindenberg dies at nine o’clock on 2nd August; one hour later a ‘law’ of the Reich government of the1st of August appears: The offices of the President and the Chancellor are united in Hitler’s person, the army [Wehrmacht] will give its oath to him, and at half past six the troops in Dresden swore their oath and everything is calm The people hardly notice this coup d’etat. It all takes place in complete silence
A friend of the author’s, released from a concentration camp had to sign that he would remain silent on all ignominies he had to face in the camp. “Literally everyone cringes with feareveryone fears the next person maybe an informer.” (19th August 1933) All personal liberty, particularly of the Jews and non-Aryans are suspended. Klemperer’s lawyer states “we are no longer a state based on law.” (19th September 1933). On 9th October 1933 the author regretfully states some Jews “are beginning to submit inwardly and to regard the new ghetto situation atavistically as a legal condition that has to be accepted.” All around him he sees despair; his friend Dember moves to Constantinople; Ulich is suspended on half salary and pressured to give up his professorship voluntarily. He himself is ultimately dismissed from the University, forced out of the house, he and his wife built with so much trouble, and shifted into segregated housing.
The impact of the Third Reich was felt in every aspect of German life. Village life of the generation was disrupted because of the compulsory Nazi participation. Children were separated from their parents and deported. At least 18,000 children left Germany this way, never to meet their parents again.
Hitler’s cleansing of Germany resulted in the setting up of the many concentration camps. Steps were taken to get rid of everyone who did not fit in. Between 1933 and 1945 almost 3.5 million opponents to the Nazi rule were deported to concentration camps. The Party racially profiled every citizen of the country issuing identity cards which had to be carried all the time. German students got brown cards, non-Aryans, blue cards and Jews, yellow cards. The Star of David was issued to every Jew to distinguish them from the rest. The press became Hitler’s tool to spread his anti Semitist ideology, which was further fueled by the visual broadcasts of his speeches and flamboyant oratory exercises. The Germans began to view Hitler and Nazism as the only way out of the mess they were in after the defeat in the war. He was perceived to embody all German virtues.
On 17th August 1937 Klemperer writes
I recently saw a picture: two girls in swimming costume at a seaside resort. Above it “Prohibited for Jews,” underneath it: “How nice it’s just us now” I have not only outwardly lost my Fatherland. And even if the government should change one day, my inner sense of belonging is gone
The anguish is evident in this entry of his diary and was a reflection of what most non-Aryans, who were Germans first and then considered their religion, felt during that period. Jews were forced to register all property above 5000M and prohibited from selling. The Party confiscated all their belongings and deported them to concentration camps. Most tried to flee the country. At least 37,000 Jews left the country in 1933 and another 23,000 in 1934 for other parts of Europe, Palestine and the United States, an exodus not equaled until 1938-39. But Hitler banned emigration and revoked their citizenship too.
Kemplerer’s experiences worsened over time as he more frequently met people who not only supported the Party’s policies towards Jews, but also needed to express their hatred by openly attacking then.
On 12th January 1942 he describes an incident that is an apt example of it
At four o'clock on Thursday afternoon, January 8, I am returning from shopping at Chemnitzer Platz on the front platform of the no. 16 tram. At the county court, people crowding on as usual. Just before the station, a young man turns toward me, very clean-cut face, cold gray eyes, and says quietly: "Get off at the next stop." I, quite mechanically, since I change trams there: "Yes." Only as I get off does it strike me as curious. I'm waiting for the no. 14. Then he's standing beside me: "Where have you come from? Where are you going? Come with me." I did not even ask for any identification.
Kemplerer is taken to the Gestapo building where his harassment continues. They make nasty references to his Jewish origins, not believing that he is a Protestant. They take it for granted that he has stolen something although the milk and bread they find in his bags were bought with the coupons issued by the government. They forbid him from travelling by tram. “You'd better not let yourself be seen on the tram here. You can walk. And if we see you here again, you're going. You know where to. Understood?"
But Kemplerer was also witness to the Party’s internal politics, the disagreements between the different ministries.
On 18th January 1942 he notes
Yesterday dramatic reversal in the evacuation business. The first news reached the Jews' House in the afternoon. There had been a fierce argument between the Party on the one hand, the company and the army on the other; many hours of negotiations, a threat to close the factory, to appeal to Göring, should the Jewish section be touched—finally the plant won completely: Not only does the whole workforce remain, but it will probably take over all the other Jews working in Dresden factories, so that the transport will not take place at all. Very emotional scenes are said to have occurred in the factory.
But all through the horrific years of the Third Reich Klemperer “remained convinced, however, that Hitler’s regime, like the influenza epidemic of 1918, was a disease that would one day burn itself out, even if he was not confident that he would survive to witness it.”
All through his diaries it is evident that the Party of the Third Reich slowly and surely gained total control over the lives of the Germans, brainwashing the Aryans completely to believe that they belonged to a superior race while systematically breaking down the Jews and the non-Aryans and annihilating them. It was the intervention of the Allies and the six years of terrible war that finally ended this horror.
Bibliography
Kemplerer, Victor I Shall Bear Witness, The Diaries of Victor Kemplerer 1933-1941. (Abridged and translated from the German edition by Martin Chalmers; Great Britain: Weidenfiels & Nicolson: 1998)
Kemplerer, Victor I Shall Bear Witness, A Diary of the Nazi Years 1942-1945.
(Abridged and translated from the German edition by Martin Chalmers; Great Britain: Weidenfiels & Nicolson: 1998)
G Wilke, ‘Village Life’, Life in the Third Reich
(Richard Bessel, ed.; Oxford University Press: 1987)
Birken, Lawrence Prussianism, Nazism and Romanticism in the Thought of Victor Klemperer, The German Quarterly, Vol 22, No 1 (1999)
Kaplan, Marion A, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany
(New York: Oxford University Press: 1998)
Carr, W Nazi Policy Against the Jews, Life in the Third Reich
(Richard Bessel, ed.; Oxford University Press: 1987)
Turner, Henry Ashby, Victor Kemplerer’s Holocaust, German Studies Review, Vol 2 No.3 (The John Hopkins University Press: 1999)
