Skip to content
database: Klemperer Online
database: Klemperer Online

Klemperer Online

Tagebücher 1918–1959

Klemperer Online: Diaries, 1918–1959
Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Overview

About this database

Klemperer Online Tutorial

For the first time, the database makes available the complete and unabridged diaries of Victor Klemperer, which are among the most important sources of 20th-century German history. The texts feature an extensive commentary and contain over a third more material than the print edition.

In addition to an edited transcript, the database provides a facsimile of each handwritten diary entry. An intuitive tab structure allows for easy navigation between the transcript and the handwritten originals.

The complete edition of the diaries offers an even more comprehensive and detailed picture of the decades documented by Klemperer.

Exclusive and unabridged in the database

  • Klemperer’s reflections on Germany and Judaism, humanism and barbarism, and antisemitism
  • Available to researchers for the first time: Klemperer’s entries in the run-up to Lingua Tertii Imperii and preliminary work for his history of French literature
  • Detailed film notes on 750 films, accompanied by a separate filmography: a treasure trove for cineasts
  • Detailed accounts of Klemperer’s numerous trips, which give striking contemporary descriptions of destinations such as France, Italy, and China

Additional material

  • A biographical sketch of Klemperer by Walter Nowojski
  • A detailed chronology of Klemperer’s life
  • A discussion of the publication history of Klemperer’s diaries by Christian Löser
  • A filmography of over 750 films viewed by Klemperer between 1919 and 1932, as a supplement to the film notes in the diaries
  • An extensive bibliography on the literature by and about Victor Klemperer
  • Notes on the structure of the Christian Löser edition and a user’s guide

On Victor Klemperer and his diaries

Klemperer, who primarily identified as “German,” was the son of a reform rabbi and converted to Protestantism in 1912. For the Nazis, however, he remained a Jew and was persecuted as such. His careful observations and analyses from the Weimar Republic, the National Socialist era, and the German Democratic Republic illuminate what it meant to live under these three regimes.

The database covers the entire four-decade period (from 1918 to 1959) in which Klemperer kept his diaries.

The early diaries from the Weimar Republic offer an insight into Klemperer’s life and career as a professor of Romance languages at the Technische Universität Dresden (TUD). As the Nazis rose to power, he adopted the role of a “cultural historian of the catastrophe,” documenting the ongoing withdrawal of rights from Jews. These observations are accompanied by a minute account of his day-to-day life under National Socialism. His post-1945 diaries testify to a desire for a radical new beginning – both for himself and for Germany. Though less well known than his other diaries and until now never published in full, these provide significant insights into the divided post-war Germany and early East Germany, as well as Klemperer’s engagement with Communism and Zionism.

The database promises to generate a wealth of new insights concerning this already classic historical reference work.

Copyright notice

© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin / Boston. All rights to the original texts © Aufbau Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin. Use of the electronic copies of the original diaries, courtesy of the SLUB Dresden.

Your Benefits

  • The complete diaries with full commentary
  • Each diary entry is also available as a facsimile of the original handwritten entry
  • An intuitive tab structure allows for easy navigation between the transcript and the handwritten original
  • New: the electronic edition of the 1918–1933 and 1945–1959 diaries, more than 4,600 diary entries, with over a third more material than the print editions
  • Total circulation of the printed edition of the diaries 1933–1945: 500,000 copies, with translations in 17 countries
  • Supplements the following databases: Archiv Bibliographia Judaica – Deutschsprachiges Judentum Online, Deutsch-jüdische Quellen aus Palästina / Israel, Vossische Zeitung Online. 1918–1934 and Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels Online as well as Hitler. Quellen 192445 Online
  • Non-restrictive DRM – allows for an unlimited number of simultaneous users per campus or institution

Editorial

Editorial

© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston. Alle Rechte an den Originaltexten © Aufbau Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin. Verwendung der Digitalisate der Tagebücher mit freundlicher Genehmigung der SLUB Dresden. Datenbank-Cover: Abraham Pisarek (1946), Quelle: Deutsche Fotothek, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE

Lemmas A-Z

Persons A-Z

Places A-Z

Search Help

Search Help

Here you will find instructions for searching in the Klemperer Online and explanations of the individual search functions.

Search

You have three different options for searching.

Search form

The search form allows you to search using various search criteria. To do so, select the appropriate criterion in the search field and enter your search term(s) in the search field. The following search criteria are available:

  1. Full Text: Searches in all entries for the entered terms. Finds all entries that contain all searched terms and therefore returns the most results. For a more specific search, the other search criteria are more suitable.

    The following operators can be used in the search field:
    • *: Added to a string. Searches for entries including all terms that match the searched string with any addition.
    • AND: Searches for entries including all the terms connected by this operator (default search function).
    • OR: Searches for entries including at least one of the terms connected by this operator.
    • NOT: Searches for entries including the first, but not the second of the terms connected by this operator.

    These operators can be combined with each other.

  2. Title: Finds all entries whose titles contain all searched terms. This search criterion can be used to search specifically for entries for particular terms. Search with truncation does not work at the moment.
  3. Person: Finds all entries that contain the searched person. Suggests up to 15 matching persons in alphabetical order as you type. This search criterion can be used to search for entries in which specific persons are mentioned.
  4. Type: Select a type from the drop-down menu: Filme, Tagebucheintrag, Zusatzmaterial. Finds all entries of this type.
  5. Publication Year: Select Exact to search for a single year, or Range to search for a range of years. Finds all entries that have been published electronically in this year or range of years.
  6. Date: Select Exact to search for a single date (required: year; optional: month and day), or Range to search for a range of years (required: years; optional: month[s] and day[s]). Finds all entries that have this date or range of years.
  7. Entry language: Select a language from the drop-down menu. Finds all entries which are written in this language. Only German language is available for KLEMP.

Please note: The search is not case sensitive.

You have the option to apply several search criteria at the same time. To do this, click on "Add row" in the search form. This creates a second search field in which you can set another search criterion (or else the same one). You can create as many additional search fields as you like.
If you use more than one search field, the search will find all entries that match all search criteria ("Search for all of these terms"). Instead, you can also select "Search for any of these terms" above the search fields, which will cause the search to find all entries that match at least one of the searched criteria.
By clicking on "Add NOT" you create a search field to which you can assign a search criterion. Terms entered in this search field will be excluded from the search. You can add this search field as often as you like.
By combining the above functions, you are able to perform very specific searches.

Example

You want to search the Klemperer Online for all entries that mention the word "Greifswald" and the person “Klemperer, Eva”. However, you want to exclude entries between the years “1918” and “1947” from the search. For this you use the search form as follows:

  1. Create a second search field via "Add row".
  2. Select the search for "all of these terms" (default option).
  3. In the first search field, select the search criterion Full Text and enter the search term "Greifswald".
  4. In the second search field, select the search criterion Person and enter "Klemperer, Eva".
  5. Create a third search field via "Add NOT". This is marked with a "NOT".
  6. Select the search criterion Date in this search field, click on “Range” and enter “1918” and “1947” in the two search fields.
  7. After clicking on "Search" you will see 10 out of 101 hits in the results list.

Browse

The browse button allows you to quickly search for years and other specific categories. The results list of a browse search can be further searched via the search form as described above.

A-Z

On the start page of the database you can view indices of all contained persons from A to Z. By clicking on a term you get to the results list, which shows all entries that contain the place or person. In case of a lemma the results list shows all entries which have the full lemma in their title.

Results list

The results that match your search are listed on one or more pages. The number of search results as well as the search criteria can be found above the results list.

Each search result consists of the title of the entry, author(s) if existent, access information, entry type, online publication date (print publication date in brackets, if applicable), the cover of the database as well as a button to download the PDF ("Download PDF"), if available, and a text preview showing relevant text passages and highlighting the searched term in yellow (only for Full Text search criterion).

You can access a search result by clicking on the title or cover of the database. If you do not have access to the database, please log in first.

The search results are sorted by relevancy (frequency and weighting of the searched terms). You can also sort by date ("New to old" or "Old to new") or by title ("A to Z" or "Z to A").
Furthermore, instead of the default 10 results per page, you can also display 20, 50 or 100 results per page.

The search results can be further restricted under "Filter Results". Various filter options are available for this:

  1. Access: This option filters the search results according to who can access them. By default, "All content" is found. It is possible to filter by "Licensed content", "Open Access", "Publicly available" as well as "All available content".
  2. Person
  3. Type
  4. Publication Year
  5. Entry language

All filters can be combined with each other. Filtering by certain filter options excludes further certain filter options if there are no entries which match both options.

Downloaded on 28.3.2024 from https://www.degruyter.com/database/klemp/html
Scroll to top button