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Victor Klemperer
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I Will Bear Witness, Volume 2: A Diary of the Nazi Years: 1942-1945 Kindle Edition

by Victor Klemperer (Author), Martin Chalmers (Translator) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 244 ratings
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Destined to take its place alongside The Diary of Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel's Night as one of the great classics of the Holocaust, I Will Bear Witness is a timeless work of literature, the most eloquent and acute testament to have emerged from Hitler's Germany. Volume Two begins in 1942, the year the Final Solution was formally proposed, and carries us through to the Allied bombing of Dresden and Germany's defeat.
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  1. Book 2 of 2
    I Will Bear Witness
  2. Print length
    555 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Modern Library
  5. Publication date
    February 17, 2016
  6. File size
    2780 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
244 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the writing style sophisticated, concise, and eloquent. They describe the book as a compelling, amazing, and fine daily chronicle. Readers also appreciate the great insight into how people lived and a unique perspective. They say it's inspirational, invaluable, and well worth the investment of time.

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18 customers mention "Writing style"13 positive5 negative

Customers find the writing style sophisticated, concise, and eloquent. They appreciate the author's incredible attention to detail and feel for comprehensive analysis. Readers say the book offers the most complete and engaging view of life in Nazi Germany.

"...they don’t have the depth of “the professor” and his incredible attention to detail and feel for the comprehensive cost of war, being a Jew, and..." Read more

"...Not only are these books superbly written by an educated and perceptive man and expertly translated, they offer the most complete and engaging view..." Read more

"...of all that he is a great writer - he was also, I think, something ofa hypochondriac, and extremely sensitive, so that events that might..." Read more

"...I'm still reading Vol II and the detail that Mr. Klemperer writes is superb...." Read more

15 customers mention "Reading quality"15 positive0 negative

Customers find the book remarkable, compelling, and amazing. They say it's the finest daily chronicle and a required read for anyone seriously interested.

"...His courage (though I suspect he didn’t realize that he had it) is remarkable and inspirational...." Read more

"...These books are required reading for anyone seriously interested in the history of Nazi Germany." Read more

"Remarkable. As a reader of so many wonderful works on WWII and Nazi Germany, this rises to them, if not higher...." Read more

"...The book is interesting at times and at other times it just drags on...." Read more

7 customers mention "Insight"7 positive0 negative

Customers find the book fascinating and unique. They say it provides great insight into how people lived and how rights were slowly eroded. Readers also appreciate the thoughtful and insightful commentary on the methods.

"...I have read these volumes twice now, and because of it my life view is greatly enriched through having done so...." Read more

"This book, along with Volume One, provides a wholly unique perspective of being a Jew in Germany on the ground in real time...." Read more

"This is fascinating. Victor Klemperer as a historian is the ideal person to keep a diary of the madness that was Nazi Germany...." Read more

"...His diaries (Three volumes, 1933 to 1958) provide great insight into how people lived, how rights were slowly taken away from Jews, first, Drivers..." Read more

4 customers mention "Value for money"4 positive0 negative

Customers find the book remarkable, inspiring, and invaluable. They say it's life-affirming, profound, and revealing about the state. Readers also mention the book is well worth the investment of time to read it.

"...While these diaries are very long, they are so well worth the investment of time to read them...." Read more

"This is the most invaluable resource, and to think that all of the entries could have resulted in his death once discovered, and the death of..." Read more

"...I feel that this diary and the proceeding one are so profound and revealing about the state of a person living in a society which not only wants to..." Read more

"...It is also a tribute to the true human spirit and the power of the intellect...." Read more

3 customers mention "Print size"0 positive3 negative

Customers find the print size of the book too small.

"...Did not like the very small print, never did and never will. I figure if they would have used a larger print the books would have doubled in size...." Read more

"...Pages of book were not attached to hard cover. Pages looked to be wrong size for cover. Book has been returned. One star is too high a rating." Read more

"...as a 50 year old with good "close-up" vision, this print is wayy too small. We are talking old style King James Bible small print...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

Kelley Ridings
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant masterwork of the greatest account of daily life in Nazi Germany
Reviewed in the United States on December 24, 2017
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Victor Klemperer’s “I Will Bear Witness Vol. 2” (and 1) is the single greatest non-fiction book I know. His diary recounts what it was like to live as an everyday German (of Jewish descent even though he was a Christian married to his soulmate (an Aryan), Eva, under the increasing degradation of society under the Nazis. As an ardent anti-Nazi, he felt it his solemn duty to record everyday life, in an uncensored critique of Hitler and the brutality of the Nazis, even though he was intently aware that doing so could cost him his life (and others around him) if discovered. The downward spiral of everyday life to intensifying horror and deprivation is painfully recorded by Klemperer in such vivid detail that one cannot help but feel one knows him so well after reading these volumes. His courage (though I suspect he didn’t realize that he had it) is remarkable and inspirational. It’s impossible to separate these volumes, though Volume 2 is certainly far more brutal because of the depiction of constant threat of starvation, capture, and death he and his wife faced every day. Klemperer eventually recognized his life’s purpose was to bear witness to the horrors around him. He was a brilliant scholar of literature however his greatest life’s work was this diary. Because of this diary, I have a deeper understanding of what daily life in Germany for a Jew in a way I’ve never known through any other account. While these diaries are very long, they are so well worth the investment of time to read them. I have read these volumes twice now, and because of it my life view is greatly enriched through having done so. I cannot recommend these volumes enough.
15 people found this helpful
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Cabin Dweller
5.0 out of 5 stars The Epic Part II
Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2015
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This is the most invaluable resource, and to think that all of the entries could have resulted in his death once discovered, and the death of Annemarie his Aryan abettor, could have been misplaced in all the moves, could have been destroyed by war, and could have been destroyed after the war. If there are other works similar, they don’t have the depth of “the professor” and his incredible attention to detail and feel for the comprehensive cost of war, being a Jew, and being German. Although I was not able to read this work quickly and did not finish with anticipation, Klemperer accomplished everything the Nazis took from him beginning with the 1933-1941 diary.
Unlike the first diary, Klemperer has no need to discuss the house’s construction, the anxiety of driving, the trivial budgeting, and the loss of his work. This I Will Bear Witness still details his angina trouble, as well as Eva’s struggles, to include toward the end anemia, but the other details are from inside the cave. The Jews’ house goes from one spot into another. He counts the deaths as they are rumored to occur, and usually confirmed. The Jews’ house, technically, was counterintuitive for the Nazis. Klemperer obviously took strength from the close quarters and the overall circumstances of seeing others suffer the same. This includes diet after diet of potatoes. The rationing coupons keep the story going. Dresden is a character more and more, but I was enlightened about the rate of bombing, finding that the bombs came late and in spurts. His house’s survival, and that of an old friend, suggests the bombing was not that of the final scenes of The Pianist. The shelters were used thirty minutes at a time, sometimes less. The concentration camp of choice is Theresienstadt, never Auschwitz or Dachau. There is little to no hint that Theresienstadt is a haven. As Klemperer says, the camp surely means death.
Klemperer’s reading is slowed but not eliminated. I marked a page for Joseph Kessel and The Prisoners. As the good of the war seems possible, the time can be a neutralizer. On May 6, 1944, Klemperer writes, “Yesterday a death sentence that is more cruel and brooks less delay than the angina diagnosis. An eye muscle, the obliquus inferior of the left eye, is paralyzed.” Klemperer believes whatever the progress of the Russians and the Americans, and despite the fall of the Italians, his health will kill him at any time because of diet, poor healthcare, and of course the stress. On some pages he is bravely resigned, and then a radio report or a conversation with a nice policeman will actually bring him all back into dogged focus. All in all the timeline is as can be expected. When Operation Valkryie failed and officers were shot, Klemperer knew. When D-Day hit, Klemperer knew, and had enough information, or perhaps firsthand evidence in Dresden, to disbelieve reports that the Americans and British were failing their mission. Although he was way off the mark suggesting the war would end in 1943, he is on the pulse of the war believing 1944 might not be premature. But then the Battle of the Bulge, and the writing was definitely on the wall as the Russians, feared as rapists but viewed as heroes, and the Americans, viewed as casual and particularly un-militaristic, un-German, collapsed in what some near Klemperer thought would immediately lead to a new clash. Klemperer never states he believes strongly in this. He dwells on being a refugee. He does not fear the future. He does not wonder anymore about money. The references he makes to his profession and his livelihood come from others who believe the Klemperer name will automatically place the author back on a pre-1933 perch.
10 people found this helpful
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Dan Cragg
5.0 out of 5 stars A Ten-Star Collection
Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2004
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Volume I and this volume of Victor Klemperer's diaries as well as "The Language of the Third Reich" ("LTI") comprise the most extraordinary view of Hitler's Germany so far published. Not only are these books superbly written by an educated and perceptive man and expertly translated, they offer the most complete and engaging view ever presented of life in Nazi Germany. Born a Jew, Klemperer was a converted Christian, married to an Aryan, an anti-Zionist, and a German through and through. He also served with distinction in WWI. None of this made much difference to the Gestapo but nevertheless the Klemperers survived all 12 years of the Third Reich without being sent to a death camp, the humiliations (confiscation of car, home, pets, even Klemperer's WWI rifle bayonet!), the shortages of food and clothing, the forced manual labor. Through Klemperer's eyes we see clearly and with amazing detail and insight how the Nazis strangled initiative and freedom in Germany between 1933-1945, not only for Jews but Germans as well. We also see that anti-Semitism was not as widely spread in Germany as we might have previously believed, at least not in Dresden, where the Klemperers spent most of these horrible 12 years. It is also significant that neither Klemperer nor any of the other Jews in Dresden were aware during the war of the precise extent of the Holocaust, although they all knew that being sent to a concentration camp meant eventual death. My only criticism of these diaries is they could have used some maps of the local area and the notes should've been put at the bottom of the pages instead of at the end of the books, arranged by date. Thus it is sometimes very easy to miss the significance of certain entries. These books are required reading for anyone seriously interested in the history of Nazi Germany.
10 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Bristol
5.0 out of 5 stars An extraordinary first-hand account of tyranny
Reviewed in Canada on May 22, 2018
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No book has brought me closer to the lived reality of life in Nazi Germany. Klemperer conveys the horror of living day-to-day with the threat of arbitrary arrest and death. Particularly fascinating is his record of how individual Jews and so-called Aryans acted when personally threatened by extraordinary evil, some heroically, some shamefully.
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Sally
5.0 out of 5 stars There for the grace of god......
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 17, 2019
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I enjoyed reading this book, so people did some didnt. The book is from somebody else life in a horrendous time and from their perspective, that had to be accounted for when people leave feed back in a digital age where we are not use to hard ship, our kids lifes are over when internet crashes, . Take everything away from modern mankind see how well he manages, then criticise the same book.
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Constant
5.0 out of 5 stars Written at great personal risk
Reviewed in Canada on March 21, 2016
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Very readable, accurate account of life of a Jewish professor and his "Aryan" wife in wartime Germany. Many dangers and hardships. Incredible historical document.
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Your Aunt Martha
5.0 out of 5 stars Day by day in Dresden 1933-41
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 6, 2015
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These were recommended by a reader of history in the family. I have read both volumes and believe my understanding of the period is greatly expanded. These volumes were gifts to another reader of history in the family who requested them. I think that makes 3 recommendations.

Klemperer describes events and his own experiences but especially the language used by the regime to inculcate (sic) the Nazi world view. The repeated lie becomes, if not true, at least indisputable.
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Ali
5.0 out of 5 stars As expected
Reviewed in Canada on September 18, 2019
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As expected
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