Heterologias

"Hitler Chancellor. What, up to election Sunday on March 5, I called terror, was a mild prelude. Now the business of 1918 is being exactly repeated, only under a different sign, under the swastika. Again, it's astounding how easily everything collapses. What has happened to Bavaria, what has happened to the Reichsbanner, etc. etc.?

Eight days before the election the clumsy business of the Reichstag fire -- I cannot imagine that anyone really believes in Communist perpetrators instead of paid [swastika sign] work. Then the wild prohibitions and acts of violence. And on top of that the neverending propaganda in the street, on the radio, etc. On Saturday the fourth, I heard a part of Hitler's speech from Konigsberg. The front of a hotel at the railway station, illuminated, a torchlight procession in front of it, torchbearers and swastika flag bearers on the balconies and loudspeakers. I understood only words. But the tone! The unctuous bawling, truly bawling, of a priest. ---

Yesterday the dramaturge Karl Wolf dismissed "by order of the Nazi party" -- not even in the name of the government -- today the whole Saxon cabinet, etc., etc. A complete revolution and party dictatorship. And all opposing forces as if vanished from the face of the earth. It is this utter collapse of a power only recently present, no, it's complete disappearance (just as in 1918) that I find so staggering. Que sais-je?"

March 10, 1933

Diários de Viktor Klemperer, entrada de 10 de Março de 1933