Critics overwhelmingly praise Klemperer’s I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1933–1941 for its accessible style, its compelling story, and its historical significance. Peter Gay of New York Times Book Review comments, ‘‘To read Klemperer’s almost day-to-day account is a hypnotic experience; the whole, hard to put down, is a true murder mystery—from the perspective of the victim.’’

Because Klemperer never intended his diary for publication, critics find that it rings true. Omer Bartov of the New Republic observes, ‘‘Klemperer’s diary has the immediacy and the poignancy of unedited notes written in the thick of experience.’’

That Klemperer dreamed of writing his memoirs but feared they would never be completed is ironic given the global audience his diary has reached. The character of Klemperer himself is, in fact, part of the book’s appeal. Critics commend him for his humanity, integrity, courage, and insight. Gay notes that Klemperer’s ‘‘observations, including pitiless self-examinations, are unblinking; his re- flections are remarkable for their precision and their penetrations.’’

A Publishers Weekly reviewer finds that Klemperer’s understanding of the ramifications of the rise of Nazism has ‘‘the kind of clarity that usually comes with hindsight.’’ As well, commenting at length on Klemperer’s character, Bartov writes:

What is remarkable about Klemperer’s diaries is that he has clearly understood the nature of the Nazi regime and the extent of the public’s support for Hitler, but refuses to modify his view that those who brand him un-German are themselves un-German. . . . He thus remains the only true German in a country that denies his right to exist there. . . . For all his refusal to accept the realities of his situation, for all his doubts, his terrible loneliness, his terror and his delusions, Klemperer displays remarkable courage in the face of an inconceivable material and psychological catastrophe.

In a review for the Nation, Silvia Tennenbaum commends Klemperer as a diarist, noting that the title of the book:

says it all. Never has a victim observed his victimization with greater insight. Never has a victim described the apparatus of state-inflicted persecution with greater fidelity. Never has the isolation of living in a world that wishes one’s people dead been rendered with greater pathos. Every act of cruelty as well as every gesture of kindness is scrupulously recorded.

Literary and historical scholars value I Will Bear Witness as a treasure of Holocaust literature. As a first-hand account of what it was like to be in Nazi Germany, the diary provides crucial details about the nuances of Jewish persecution. Tennenbaum goes so far as to proclaim, ‘‘Nothing I have read before made the years of Nazi terror so real.’’ In addition, Gay is quick to note ‘‘even the reader familiar with Holocaust material must be gripped by these pages.’’ As well, a reviewer for Publishers Weekly calls it ‘‘one of the most important [diaries] to come out of Nazi Germany.’’ The reviewer adds that the diary’s historical contribution is its record of the ‘‘insidious progress’’ of policies that reduced the status of Jews in German society.

Richard Bernstein of New York Times Book Review praises the book as a diary that is ‘‘full of pain and anger, but also full of shrewd observations on the nature of the Nazi regime and the quality of the response of the German people to it.’’ Furthermore, in Commentary, Daniel Johnson praises the diary as a great work that is among the most readable and revealing first-hand accounts of Nazi Germany. As well, Bartov summarizes Klemperer’s contribution to Holocaust literature:

What we have in this extraordinary book,...