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This is a truly unique account of Nazi Germany at war and of one man's struggle against totalitarianism. A mid-level official in a provincial town, Friedrich Kellner kept a secret diary from 1939 to 1945, risking his life to record Germany's path to dictatorship and genocide, and to protest his countrymen's complicity in the regime's brutalities. Just one month into the war he notes how soldiers on leave spoke openly about the extermination of the Jews and the murder of POWs, while he also documents the Gestapo's merciless rule at home from euthanasia campaigns against the handicapped and mentally ill to the execution of anyone found listening to foreign broadcasts. This essential testimony of everyday life under the Third Reich is accompanied by a foreword by Alan Steinweis and the remarkable story of how the diary was brought to light by Robert Scott Kellner, Friedrich's grandson.
List of contents
Foreword Alan E. Steinweis; Preface; Biographical narrative; About the translation; Pre-war writings; The diary: 1939; 1940; 1941; 1942; 1943; 1944; 1945.
About the author
Robert Scott Kellner discovered his grandfather's diary in 1960 and has worked tirelessly to bring it to the attention of the world through exhibits at the Dwight Eisenhower and George H. W. Bush Presidential Libraries, a documentary film screened at the United Nations, and the publication of a complete edition of the diary in German and abridgments in Russian and Polish.
Summary
A remarkable account of Nazi Germany at war and of one man's struggle against totalitarianism. Friedrich Kellner's diary unflinchingly charts the country's path to dictatorship and genocide, and demonstrates just how much ordinary Germans really knew about the actions of the Nazi regime.
Report
'What is it like to be an isolated democrat in a highly popular dicatorship? This wartime diary will tell you. Just how this keenly observed book came to be published is an extraordinary story for itself. And Friedrich Kellner's day-to-day encounters with enthusiastic, gullible Hitler supporters in his hometown reveal a morally steadfast, but basically lonely German citizen whose perspective is bracing, incisive, and still pertinent to our times.' Peter Fritzsche, University of Illinois
