"As a philologist, Victor Klemperer was struck by the way the Nazis delighted in euphemistic neologisms like Volkstumskampf (ethnic conflict) and Flurbereinigung (fundamental cleansing). This daily subversion of the German language, he believed, was far more effective than the more overt kinds of propaganda. Sanitized language also made the cycle of ethnic violence easier to live with."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Niall Ferguson, The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (2006), p. 455
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/German_language
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
German language
14 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by German language →
Related Quotes
"The two great conceptual revolutions of twentieth-century science, the overturning of classical physics by Werner Hei…"
"A university teaches. What does it teach? It must obviously teach all the languages in which the great literatures wh…"
"Сердцеведением и мудрым познаньем жизни отзовется слово британца; легким щеголем блеснет и разлетится недолговечное с…"
"During the last century it was lamentable for those who had to witness it, to notice how in these circles I have just…"
"Not only in Austria, however, but also in the Reich, these so-called national circles were, and still are, under the …"
"I am a German nationalist. This means that I proclaim my nationality. My whole thought and action belongs to it. I am…"
"The people from Prague and other Czechs should be whipped who speak half Czech and half German (...) And who could en…"
"Most commonly, Holocaust survivors respond with habitual panic when exposed to triggers that in some way symbolize th…"
"For my own part I have never been able to understand how he [Hitler] was capable, with his unmelodious and raucous vo…"
"For many Germans, self-determination was both persecution and promise. About ten million speakers of the German langu…"