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‘Ich Triumphiere Sozusagen’: The Publication History of Victor Klemperer's ‘Zion‐Kapitel’ in LTI (1947–1957)
Author(s) -
Watt Roderick H.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
german life and letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 1468-0483
pISSN - 0016-8777
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0483.00248
Subject(s) - german , politics , relevance (law) , classics , law , democracy , political science , foreign policy , philosophy , history , archaeology
The publication in 1999 of Victor Klemperer's diaries for the years 1945–1959 provides a fascinating insight into the way in which he sought to accommodate his personal and academic position in East Germany to the demands of a social and political system to which he had only reluctantly committed himself in the view that it was the lesser of two evils when compared with what he believed to be the threatening re‐emergence of Fascism in West Germany. In particular, the publication history of the notorious ‘Zion‐Kapitel’ of his most famous book, LTI. Notizbuch eines Philologen , is one of several case studies illustrating how Klemperer learned to cultivate and maintain his personal and professional profile as an academic in the German Democratic Republic by adapting to and, where necessary, exploiting the exigencies of a foreign and domestic policy effectively dictated by the USSR. Klemperer's determination to distinguish between anti‐Zionism and anti‐Semitism is also of particular relevance today.