The Lesser Evil

The superb, bestselling diaries of Victor Klemperer, a Jew in Dresden who survived the war - hailed as one of the 20th century's most important chronicles.

'Compulsive reading' LITERARY REVIEW 'Deeply engrossing' SPECTATOR

'Klemperer's diary deserves to rank alongside that of Anne Frank' SUNDAY TIMES

'A vivid and powerful account of a remarkable life' SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY

June 1945. The immediate postwar period produces many shocks and revelations - some people have behaved better than Klemperer had believed, others much worse. His sharp observations are now turned on the East German Communist Party, which he himself joins, and he notes many similarities between Nazi and Communist behaviour. Politics, he comes to believe, is above all the choice of the "lesser evil". He serves in the GDR's People's Chamber and represents East German scholarship abroad. But it is the details of everyday life, and the honesty and directness, that make these bestselling diaries so fascinating.