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In reply to the discussion: I need everyone's help again with a book list. This one is Top 5 books you've read. [View all]Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)He was a non-observant Jewish professor of French Literature and kept (at great risk) a diary of his daily life in Dresden from the rise of Hitler to the end of the war. He avoided the death camps (barely) because he was married to an Aryan. It is almost impossible to put down once started. No heroics or hair-breadth escapes but a great insight into what life was really like for Jews and everyone else under the 3rd Reich and fascism.
He was politically a Moderate and first thought that Hitler was a flash in the pan, loud mouth, politician, who would crumble under the reality of governing.
It is a great picture of how people gave up their freedoms little by little until it was too late.
He was a cousin of Otto Klemperer the conductor and could have gotten out. But, being an intellectual, and a WWI veteran, he was convinced that the German people would overthrow Hitler and then it was too late.