LTI oder der Übertritt von Sprache zum Unmenschlichen
What the changing language has to do with the rise of the National Socialists: An evening about Victor Klemperer - the linguist from Dresden and his very important diary from the years of the so-called Third Reich. A program by Axel Thielmann and the Leipzig Sound Project.
It will be a special evening on a special day: On a November 9, synagogues burned in Germany - and this was also related to the changing language. With the LTI - the language of the so-called Third Reich - as described by the linguist Victor Klemperer from Dresden, who himself came from a Jewish family. "Mein Kampf," the Bible of National Socialism, according to Klemperer, began to appear in 1925, and with that, the language of National Socialism was literally fixed in all its fundamental aspects. Through the "seizure of power" of the party, it became a language of the people in 1933, evolving from a group language. It laid claim to all areas of public and private life: politics, jurisprudence, economics, art, science, schools, sports, family, kindergartens, and children’s rooms. Victor Klemperer kept a diary during these dark years. A grim document of life and death during that time; but also of the impoverishment of language. That Klemperer survived is due precisely to the dramatic deaths of people and the city of Dresden on the bombing night of February 13, 1945. On that day, he had to deliver letters to the 70 Jews still remaining in Dresden: A circular that contained the instruction to "report on Friday morning in working clothes with hand luggage capable of carrying a longer distance and with provisions for two to three travel days at Dresdner Zeughausstraße 3. Assets, furniture, etc. confiscation does not take place this time; the whole is expressly only for work deployment - but is certainly perceived as a march to death." For years, German authorities had been sending such letters. And everyone whom Klemperer delivered this message to was convinced that it was not a - as announced - work deployment, but a journey without return. He survives - as mentioned, it is exactly the deadly bombing night of Dresden that saves his life: "On the evening of February 13, the catastrophe descended upon Dresden: the bombs fell, the houses collapsed, phosphorus poured down, the burning beams crashed down on Aryan and non-Aryan heads, and the same firestorm took both Jew and Christian to death; but for those from the about 70 star bearers whom this night spared, it meant salvation, for in the general chaos, he could escape the Gestapo," he wrote in his diary. On November 9, Axel Thielmann, together with the Leipzig Sound Project, will place the language of the Nazis and Klemperer's life in the spotlight in a very closely related literary-musical program. Also in view of the danger posed by populist language simplifiers of our time, his texts are highly topical...
Book cover: Reclam Verlag
Hallo, ich bin Maya.
