Diary of an Ordinary German

choi

本文通过一路BBS站telnet客户端发布


Ian Brunskill, The Story Of a Lifetime; An ordinary German—and compulsive diarist—lives through Weimar, the Nazi era and the Cold War. Wall Street Journal, Mar 19, 2011.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704893604576200583943459752.html
(book review on Peter Fritzsche, The Turbulent World of Franz Göll; An Ordinary Berliner Writes the Twentieth Century. Harvard University Press, 2011)

Note:
(a) German surname Fritzsche/Fritsche/Fritsch is a reduced form of Friedrich. Franz is German counterpart of English first name Frank, which means French (person).
(b) grapho-  combining form: "writing"

Definitions are from www.m-w.com, except in (d).
(c) The review states, "He kept notes on his reading, jotting down quotations from novels and books of verse and well as from books on science and philosophy."

The "and" should be "as."
(d) Kristallnacht
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht
(throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on Nov 9-10, 1938; SA stormtroopers and civilians destroyed buildings with sledgehammers, leaving the streets covered in pieces of smashed windows—the origin of the name "Night of Broken Glass." Ninety-one Jews were killed, and 30,000 Jewish men—a quarter of all Jewish men in Germany—were taken to concentration camps)

* The review was erroneous to say it happened Nov 8.
* Kristallnacht (n; German Kristall  crystal + Nacht  night)
Random House dictionary.
(e) warden (n): "an official charged with special supervisory duties or with the enforcement of specified laws or regulations <game warden> <air raid warden> "
(f) Springer Science+Business Media
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springer_Science%2BBusiness_Media
(Julius Springer founded Springer-Verlag in Berlin in 1842)
(g) autodidact (n; Greek didaktos taught, from didaskein to teach): "a self-taught person"
(h) windy (adj): "lacking substance : EMPTY <windy promises>"
(i) The review furtehr states, "G&ouml;ll is undoubtedly capable of acute observation."

acute (adj): "marked by keen discernment or intellectual perception especially of subtle distinctions <an acute thinker> "
--