Language Does Not Lie

Victor Klemperer 18811960 a professor of literature in Dresden was Jewish through the efforts of his wife he survived the war From 1933 when Hitler came to power to the wars end he kept a journal paying attention to the Nazis use of words This film takes the end of 1945 as its vantage point with a narrator looking back as if Klemperer reads from his journal He examines the use of simple words like folk eternal and to live Interspersed are personal photographs newsreel footage of Reich leaders and of life in Germany then and a few other narrative devices Although hes dispassionate Klemperers fear and dread resonate