Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Voices at Home (I): Private Notes for Posterity

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
National Socialism and German Discourse

  • 470 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter focuses on genres of ‘private’ writing by authors in states of ‘inner exile’. Style criticism is represented by Mechtilde Lichnowsky (a protégée of Karl Kraus), whose private annotations on Hitler’s style in Mein Kampf have been preserved. Lexicographic inventorizing and categorizing of language use is represented by Seidel and Seidel-Slotty’s encyclopaedic Sprachwandel im Dritten Reich (problematically published at the height of the Cold War in 1961 and containing observations relating to the post-1945 period). The greater part of the chapter is devoted to a review of six diarists (Anna Haag, Theodor Haecker, Ursula von Kardorff, Erich Kästner, Victor Klemperer, and Thea Sternheim) and the various degrees of language awareness and forthright opposition contained in their diaries, including the re-telling of jokes and critical anecdotes.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 89.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    See Dodd 2013, pp. 180–183, 259f . von Polenz (1999, p. 311) calls her a direct descendant of Kraus in the genre of the language gloss.

  2. 2.

    German distinguishes between words as connected discourse (‘Worte’) and words as individual lexical items (‘Wörter’).

  3. 3.

    It can be inspected at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach am Neckar, under the rubric: A: Lichnowsky /Verschiedenes/81.7629/Konvolut Anmerkungen zu einem Buch, vermutlich ‘ Mein Kampf’ von Adolf Hitler.

  4. 4.

    In the following review, the relevant passage in Hitler’s text is set in italics, followed by Lichnowksy’s comment. Her page references can be matched against Hitler 1934.

  5. 5.

    An article by Lichnowsky first published in the Frankfurter Zeitung in 1941 was titled “Haben und Besitzen sind nicht synonym”. Cf. Dodd 2013, pp. 180–183.

  6. 6.

    This was a common source of ironic comment even in public discourse. Cf. Oskar Jancke’s gloss “Grossunfug” (grand nonsense), Jancke 1938, p. 89f.

  7. 7.

    In this respect Sprachwandel im Dritten Reich would appear to have some affinity—discounting the limitations of its ‘inner exile’ position—with Carl Zuckmayer’s Geheimreport (Zuckmayer 2002), produced in 1944 in the USA for the CIA, in which leading figures of German cultural life are evaluated in terms of their entanglement with the regime.

  8. 8.

    See Storz’s article on volkhaft and völkisch, reviewed in Chap. 7, and Dornseiff’s review of Weisgerber 1934 (Dornseiff 1934).

  9. 9.

    Correspondence with Akademie der Künste, Berlin (on archival documents relating to Seidel) and conversation with Professor Hartmut Schmidt (Berlin).

  10. 10.

    Cf. Townson 1992, pp. 176–192; Clyne 1993; Stevenson 2002; von Polenz 1999, pp. 424–435, 562–571.

  11. 11.

    On a separate issue, it is difficult to believe that in 1961 the authors were unacquainted with the post-war debates on ‘Nazi language’, framed largely by Klemperer’s LTI (1947) and the Wörterbuch des Unmenschen, the first book edition of which had appeared in 1957. The possible influence of these works, discussed in Chap. 8, cannot be dismissed.

  12. 12.

    See Kempowski 1993, 1999, 2002, 2005 (English translation 2015).

  13. 13.

    In light of the different editions of the diaries , references are to the date of the entry (or the nearest preceding date). The complete text is available on CD-Rom (Klemperer 2007). Of the print editions, Klemperer 1998a is the most complete version of the text.

  14. 14.

    Cf. https://youtu.be/jeS5ZGJnUco?list=PL1hOdNwUSZZItlLLu9FLXZOimHdrKbcTu (3.12.2016).

  15. 15.

    In the same entry Klemperer gleefully celebrates his victory over the Gestapo as “KdF”—Kunst der Fingerfertigkeit (the art of prestidigitation), yet another ironic variation on Kraft durch Freude.

  16. 16.

    In the sense of ‘removal’ from one place of residence to another, the misdirection of the official use of abgewandert lies partly in the suggestion that the person has emigrated. A creative English rendition of the ironic variation might be that these people have “been gone away with”.

  17. 17.

    See also 3.12.1938, 8.7.1942, 21.8.1942, 30.1.1943, 24.6.1944, 4.1.1945. For a fuller account, cf. Klemperer 2007; Anhang, p. 11258ff.

  18. 18.

    Whilst this kind of characterization tends to foreground its ‘referential’ quality, as a factual description of a reality existing independently of the chronicler, Klemperer’s account is, like those of all the commentators reviewed in this book, also ‘relational’ in its subjectivity. On this distinction, applied to Klemperer, see Woods 2014. Kämper does not employ this terminology, but does address the “Bedingtheit” of Klemperer’s commentary, its embeddedness in specific cultural-historical contexts.

  19. 19.

    Siefken (1994, p. 20) points to the clear influence of Haecker and Muth’s Christian theology on the White Rose’s fourth pamphlet in the summer of 1942.

  20. 20.

    Haecker , “Tagebuchblätter ”, Hochland 37 (1939/1940), Heft 12 (September 1940), 470–475.

  21. 21.

    Cf. Damiano 2005, p. 8f.

  22. 22.

    By setting laut in italics, Haecker is emphasizing the loud declamatory tone of such language.

  23. 23.

    Cf. Kardorff 1997, p. 33: “doch das ganze Ausmaß des Grauens ahnten wir nicht” (“but we had no idea of the full extent of the horror”).

  24. 24.

    Plutokraten was a common term in Nazi discourse for the governing elites in the UK and USA, implying an international Jewish financial lobby.

  25. 25.

    Unlike ‘Frau’, ‘Weib’ often has a derogatory connotation, as it does here.

  26. 26.

    See also Haag’s later autobiographical work ( Haag 1968).

  27. 27.

    The keywords, whilst not explicitly marked in Haag’s text, are clearly identified as such.

  28. 28.

    ‘Aktion T4’ was the name given after 1945 to the involuntary euthanasia programme, after the address of the relevant department of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, Tiergarten 4.

  29. 29.

    Sternheim 2002. Quotations, by date, are from volumes 2 (1925–1936) and 3 (1936–1951).

  30. 30.

    Kraus left the Jewish faith and adopted Catholicism in 1911, but left the Catholic church in 1923.

  31. 31.

    The term originates with Nietzsche , its opposite is ‘Sklavenmoral’ (slave morality).

  32. 32.

    On the history of Barlach’s famous “Schwebender Engel” in Güstrow, see MacGregor 2014, pp. 528–542.

  33. 33.

    Cf. my reading (in Chap. 7) of Kircher’s “ Sprache und Stil” and Sternberger’s “Blick der Liebenden”; and Tucholsky 1975, Bd. 9, p. 182 (referenced in Chap. 2).

Bibliography

  • Bering, Dietz. 1987. Der Name als Stigma. Antisemistismus im deutschen Alltag 1812–1933. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boehlich, Walter. 1955. Über die Sprache. Merkur 9: 889–894.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1964. Irrte hier Walter Boehlich? Frankfurter Hefte 19: 731–734.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boveri, Margret. 1965. Wir lügen alle. Eine Hauptstadtzeitung unter Hitler. Olten: Freiburg i.B.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clyne, Michael. 1993. Who Owns the German Language? In Das unsichtbare Band der Sprache, ed. John Flood et al., 357–369. Stuttgart: Hans-Dieter Heinz Akademischer Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Damiano, Carla A. 2005. Walter Kempowski’s “Das Echolot”: Sifting and Exposing the Evidence via Montage. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dodd, William J., ed. 2013. “Der Mensch hat das Wort”. Der Sprachdiskurs in der Frankfurter Zeitung 1933–1943. Berlin, Boston: de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dornseiff, Franz. 1934. Sprache und Gesamtkultur. Geistige Arbeit, Vol. 1, No. 12, p. 8f. June 20.

    Google Scholar 

  • Emonts, Anne Martina. 2012. Unmasking Violence and Domination. Mechtilde Lichnowsky and the 20th Century (Word) Wars. In Plots of War: Modern Narratives of Conflict, ed. Isabel Capeloa Gil and Adriana Martins, 87–97. Berlin, Boston: de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haag, Anna. 1968. Das Glück zu leben. Erinnerungen an bewegte Jahre. Stuttgart: Adolf Bonz.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haecker, Theodor. 1932. Betrachtungen über Vergil, Vater des Abendlandes. Der Brenner 13: 3–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1989. Tag- und Nachtbücher 1939–1945. Erste vollständige und kommentierte Ausgabe. Herausgegeben von Hinrich Siefken, Brenner-Studien, Bd. 9. Innsbruck: Haymon Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hartl, Peter. 1991. Einführung zur Neuauflage. Kardorff 1997, pp. 7–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heiden, Konrad. 1935. Hitler. Das Zeitalter der Verantwortungslosigkeit. Band I. Zürich: Europa Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hitler, Adolf. 1934. Mein Kampf. Zwei Bände in einem Band. Ungekürzte Ausgabe. 97–101. Auflage. München: Franz Eher Nachfolger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jancke, Oskar. 1938. Restlos erledigt? Neue Glossen zur deutschen Sprache. München: Knorr & Hirth.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kämper, Heidrun. 2000. Sprachgeschichte – Zeitgeschichte. Die Tagebücher Victor Klemperers. Deutsche Sprache 28 (1): 25–41.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2011. Telling the Truth: Counter-Discourses in Diaries under Totalitarian Regimes (Nazi Germany and Early GDR). In Political Languages in the Age of Extremes, ed. Willibald Steinmetz, 215–241. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • von Kardorff, Ursula. 1965. Diary of a Nightmare: Berlin, 1942–1945. Translated from the German by Ewan Butler. London: R. Hart-Davis.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1997. Berliner Aufzeichnungen 1942 bis 1945. Unter Verwendung der Original-Tagebücher neu herausgegeben und kommentiert von Peter Hartl. Ungekürzte Ausgabe, 2. Auflage. München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kasten, U., and W. Kohlhaase. 1998. ‘Mein Leben ist so sündhaft lang’: Victor Klemperer—ein Chronist des Jahrhunderts. Ostdeutscher Rundfunk.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1999. Victor Klemperer—ein Leben in Deutschland. ARD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kästner, Erich. 2006. Das blaue Buch. Kriegstagebuch und Roman-Notizen. Herausgegeben von Ulrich von Bülow und Silke Becker. Aus der Gabelsberger’schen Kurzschrift übertragen von Herbert Tauber (Marbacher Magazin 111/112). Marbach am Neckar: Deutsche Schillergesellschaft.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kempowski, Walter. 1993. Das Echolot. Ein kollektives Tagebuch. Januar und Februar 1943. 4 Bände. München: Knaus.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1999. Das Echolot. Fuga furiosa. Ein kollektives Tagebuch. Winter 1945. 4 Bände. München: Knaus.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2002. Das Echolot. Barbarossa ’41. Ein kollektives Tagebuch. München: Knaus.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2005. Das Echolot. Abgesang 45. Ein kollektives Tagebuch. München: Knaus.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2015. Swansong 1945: A Collective Diary of the Last Days of the Third Reich. Translated by Shaun Whiteside. New York: W.W. Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klemperer, Victor. 1978. LTI. Notizbuch eines Philologen. Berlin: Aufbau.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2000. The Language of the Third Reich. LTI: Lingua Tertii Imperii. Translated by Martin Brady. London: Athlone Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2007. Die Tagebücher (1933–1945). Kommentierte Gesamtausgabe. Herausgegeben von Walter Nowojski unter Mitarbeit von Christian Löser. Direktmedia (Digitale Bibliothek, CD-Rom Edition).

    Google Scholar 

  • Lichnowsky, Mechtilde. 1946. Worte über Wörter. Die Wandlung 1: 521–526.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1948. Werdegang eines Wirrkopfs. Die Wandlung 3: 606–615.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1949. Worte über Wörter. Wien: Bergland.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maas, Utz. 2015. Ingeborg Seidel-Slotty. Updated March 5. Universitätsbibliothek Osnabrück. https://esf.uni-osnabrueck.de/index.php/katalog-m-z/s/427-seidel-slotty-ingeborg. Accessed 30 November 2016.

  • MacGregor, Neil. 2014. Germany. Memories of a Nation. London: Penguin (British Museum, BBC, Allen Lane).

    Google Scholar 

  • Pfäfflin, Friedrich, and Eva Dambacher. 2001. “Verehrte Fürstin”. Karl Kraus und Mechtilde Lichnowsky. Briefe und Dokumente 1916–1958. Göttingen: Wallstein.

    Google Scholar 

  • von Polenz, Peter. 1999. Deutsche Sprachgeschichte vom Spätmittelalter bis zur Gegenwart. Bd 3: 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Seidel, Eugen, and Ingeborg Seidel-Slotty. 1961. Sprachwandel im Dritten Reich. Halle: VEB Verlag Sprache und Literatur.

    Google Scholar 

  • Siefken, Hinrich. 1989. Einleitung. In Tag- und Nachtbücher 1939–1945, Hg. Theodor Haecker, 7–17. Innsbruck: Haymon.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———., ed. 1994. Die “Weiße Rose” und ihre Flugblätter. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sternheim, Thea. 2002. Tagebücher 1903–1971. Herausgegeben und ausgewählt von Thomas Ehrsam und Regula Wyss im Auftrag der Heinrich Enrique Beck-Stiftung. 5 Bde. Göttingen: Wallstein.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stevenson, Patrick. 2002. Language and German Disunity: A Sociolinguistic History of East and West Germany, 1945–2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Timms, Edward. 2015. Anna Haag and Her Secret Diary of the Second World War. A Democratic German Feminist’s Response to the Catastrophe of National Socialism. Oxford, Berne, Berlin: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tomko, Helena M. 2017. The Reluctant Satirist: Theodor Haecker and the Dizzying Swindle of Nazism. Oxford German Studies 46 (1): 42–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Townson, Michael. 1992. Mother-Tongue and Fatherland: Language and Politics in German. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tucholsky, Kurt. 1975. Gesammelte Werke. Herausgegeben von Mary Gerold-Tucholsky, Fritz J. Raddatz. Reinbek: Rowohlt.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ullrich, Volker. 1992. Geschönt und darum kaum mehr authentisch. Eine rekonstruierte Neuausgabe der ‘Berliner Aufzeichnungen’ von Ursula von Kardorff. Die Zeit, July 3. http://pdf.zeit.de/1992/28/geschoent-und-darum-kaum-mehr-authentisch. Accessed 20 August 2016.

  • Weisgerber, Leo. 1929. Muttersprache und Geistesbildung. Göttingen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1956. Von den Grenzen des Irrtums und der Verantwortung einer Schriftleitung. Wirkendes Wort 6: 158–160.

    Google Scholar 

  • Woods, Roger. 2014. The Referential and the Relational: Victor Klemperer’s Diaries in the Nazi Years. Journal of War & Culture Studies 7 (4): 336–349.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zuckmayer, Carl. 2002. Geheimreport. Göttingen: Herausgegeben von Gunther Nickel und Johanna Schrön. Wallstein.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Modern Languages, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    W J Dodd

Authors
  1. W J Dodd
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Dodd, W.J. (2018). Voices at Home (I): Private Notes for Posterity. In: National Socialism and German Discourse. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74660-9_5

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74660-9_5

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-74659-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-74660-9

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation