"Words can be like tiny doses of arsenic: They are swallowed unnoticed, appear to have no effect, and then after a little time the toxic reaction sets in after all." This quote from philologist Victor Klemperer's 1966 work, "Language of the Third Reich: Lingua Tertii Imperii" (first published in 1947 in German as "LTI: Notizbuch eines Philologen"), opens Susan Arndt's book "Rassistisches Erbe" (Racist heritage), which deals with racism and the German language.
German scholar Klemperer, a rabbi's son who had converted to Protestantism in 1912, was stripped of his academic title under the Nazis for being of Jewish descent. He was lucky enough to survive the Holocaust; while narrowly avoiding deportation, he and his wife, who was considered to be of "Aryan" heritage, were rehoused under miserable conditions in a so-called "Jews' House. "
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The philologist also kept a diary during that period; his notes were later published as books. His journals also included observations on the impact of Nazi propaganda on the German language, which provided the basis for his landmark post-war work.
More than half a century later, the Bayreuth-based German scholar Susan Arndt's book attempts another dissection of racism in the German language — but this time, from a post-colonial perspective