One of the main features of movementstotalitarian of the first half of the 20th century, like fascism, Stalinism and Nazism, was the construction of a tangle symbolic capable of perverting individual consciences and molding them to the guidelines of the party and the leader who commanded. In this sense, any and all symbolic vehicles, from everyday language to clothing, flags, gestures, haircuts, etc., it was used as an attempt to submit the individual to the collective body, to build a "psychosocial organism" coordinated by power totalitarian. the German-Jewish intellectual VictorKlemperer(1881-1960) he was one of the main analysts of this phenomenon, which he named “Language of the Third Reich”.
Klemperer specifically reflected on the role of this phenomenon in Germany. When Nazism came to power in 1933, Victor Klemperer was a distinguished researcher of the Latin language, respected internationally. In 1935, he was banned from teaching because he was Jewish. After 1938, when the persecution of Jews became openly aggressive in Germany, Klemperer was deprived of the service of libraries and forced to live in Jewish ghettos and work in forced labor camps (a fact that "freed" him from being sent to the camps. extermination). As the power of the Third Reich penetrated all spheres of social life in Germany, Klemperer began to realize the destruction that this caused within people.
The greeting rituals, the gestural greetings to the "Füher" (leader, in German), the standardization of linguistic expressions and the practically religious worship of the figure of hitlerleft Klemperer impacted. As a philologist and a great connoisseur of language, this author perceived the devastating psychological effect of Nazism. The use of symbols, such as the two ray-shaped "S" in the uniform of the SS (special squad in charge of the concentration and extermination camps), as well as the Swastika, ultimate symbol of the Nazi party, he impressed citizens so overwhelmingly that his behavior was comparable to that of religious believers. There was a principle of “metaphysical perversion” in the Third Reich, as Hitler managed to become a “salvationist” figure, a Messiah, an “earthly God”.
The acronym that Klemper created to name the Language of the Third Reich was LTI, which is the abbreviation for Tertii Imperii language (The language of the Third Empire, in Latin). One of the most shocking examples of this language, for Jews, says Klemperer, was when the Nazis came to identify them with the Star of David, the Hebrew symbol par excellence. This started to happen after 1941. In answering the question “...what was the worst day for Jews in the twelve years of Nazi hell?”, Klemperer said:
“We all give the same answer: September 19, 1941. On that day it became mandatory to wear the six-pointed Star of David, that yellow rag that even today symbolizes plague and quarantine. In the Middle Ages, it was the color that identified the Jews, but it is also the color of envy, of bloody bile, the color of evil to be avoided; this rag bears the inscription in black: JEW. The word, framed by the lines of the two partially overlapping triangles, is written in thick, capital letters. Isolated and with the horizontal lines highlighted, they imitate Hebrew characters.” [1]
The association of a religious symbol with the evil, with the repulsive, and its internalization into the consciousness of individuals were some of the many devices of totalitarian language.
GRADES
[1] KLEMPERER, Victor. LTI: language in the Third Reich. Rio de Janeiro: Counterpoint, 2009. P. 261.
By Me. Cláudio Fernandes
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/historiag/linguagem-terceiro-reich.htm