Under the Third Reich, the official language of Nazism came to be used as a political tool. The existing social culture was manipulated and subverted as the German people had their ethical values and their thoughts about politics, history and daily life recast in a new language. This notebook, translated by Martin Brady and originally called LTI (Lingua Tertii Imperii) - the abbreviation itself a parody of Nazified language - was written out of Klemperer's conviction that the language of the Third Reich helped to create its culture. As Klemperer writes: 'it isn't only Nazi actions that have to vanish, but also the Nazi cast of mind, the typical Nazi way of thinking, and its breeding ground: the language of Nazism.'
This brilliant, entertaining, profound and ultimately saddening and horrifying book, is one of the great Twentieth-Century studies of language and of its engagement with history.
