Using various examples from the multifaceted reception of Victor Klemperer's diaries and texts, I suggest that the historical concept of assimilation of Jews in Germany—as a paradigmatic Other and as a group that yet remains within a crucial national narrative—is still in place as an instrument of projection and rejection in discourse concerning German identity today. An overview of the reception reveals that the degree with which a Jewish author, Klemperer, is accepted as a German narrator of history depends on such factors as political and cultural currents in the discourse since the collaps of the Wall.

Klemperer (1881-1960), son of one of the first Reform rabbis in Berlin, youngest child in a successful family, World War I volunteer, victim of fascism and homme de lettres, came to represent a screen for nationality projections, fantasies about collective memory, and narratives of common experience. At the same time, Klemperer ultimately remains treated as a German Other despite his German identity, and despite qualifying as a "successful" assimilation. While Klemperer's aesthetics appeal to the reader and his style accounted for the success of the diaries at first, the later focus on his private life and personal image accompanied a more negative perception and an increasing disinterest.

In my first chapter I introduce Klemperer and describe the general and stereotypical reception that met his work. In the second chapter I analyze the major feature film based on the diaries and briefly evaluate the reception internationally. Chapter three I accounts variouses discourses. I concluded with chapter four in which I investigate the national Self and Other.