The superb, bestselling diaries of Victor Klemperer, a Jew in Dresden who survived the war - hailed as one of the 20th century's most important chronicles.
'Compulsive reading' LITERARY REVIEW 'Deeply engrossing' SPECTATOR
'Klemperer's diary deserves to rank alongside that of Anne Frank' SUNDAY TIMES
'A vivid and powerful account of a remarkable life' SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY
June 1945. The immediate postwar period produces many shocks and revelations - some people have behaved better than Klemperer had believed, others much worse. His sharp observations are now turned on the East German Communist Party, which he himself joins, and he notes many similarities between Nazi and Communist behaviour. Politics, he comes to believe, is above all the choice of the "lesser evil". He serves in the GDR's People's Chamber and represents East German scholarship abroad. But it is the details of everyday life, and the honesty and directness, that make these bestselling diaries so fascinating.
The Lesser Evil : The Diaries of Victor Klemperer 1945-1959
Description
Author Description
Born in 1881, Victor Klemperer studied in Munich, Geneva and Paris. He served in the German Army in the First World War and was decorated. He was a professor in Dresden until he was dismissed as a result of Nazi laws in 1935. He survived the Holocaust and the war, and taught again as an academic until his death in 1960. Martin Chalmers, the translator of the first two volumes, has also translated this volume.