LTI – Lingua Tertii Imperii: Notizbuch eines Philologen (1947) is a book by Victor Klemperer, Professor of Literature at the Dresden University of Technology. The title, half in Latin and half in German, translates to "The Language of the Third Reich: A Philologist's Notebook"; the book is published in English translation as The Language of the Third Reich.

Content

Lingua Tertii Imperii studies the way that Nazi propaganda altered the German language to inculcate people with the ideas of Nazism. The book was written in the form of personal notes which Klemperer wrote in his diary, especially from the rise of the Nazi regime in 1933, and even more after 1935, when Klemperer was stripped of his academic title because he was of Jewish descent. His diary became a notebook in which he noted and commented on the linguistic relativity of the German used by Nazi officials, ordinary citizens, and even fellow Jews. Klemperer wrote the book, based on his notes, in 1945–1946. LTI demonstrates changes in the German language in most of the population. In contrast, the text also emphasizes the idea that resistance to oppression begins by questioning the constant use of buzzwords. Both the book and its author unexpectedly survived the war. LTI was first published in 1947 in Germany. It underlines odd constructions of words intended to give a "scientific" or neutral aspect to otherwise heavily engaged discourses, as well as significant every-day behaviour.

Examples

Klemperer notes that much of the Nazi language involved appropriating old words and adapting their meaning, rather than making new ones. Among the examples he recorded of propagandistic language use were the following.

Recurrent words

Euphemisms (Schleierwörter)

Recurrent expressions and motives

Prefixes

Neologisms

In film

Sources