Bussey holds a master's degree in Interdisciplinary Studies and a bachelor's degree in English Literature. She is an independent writer specializing in literature. In the following essay, she discusses the importance of Klemperer's imagery to help the modern-day reader understand the slow spread of Nazism in Germany.

Contemporary readers of Klemperer's astonishing I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1933-1941 are struck by the unexpected details the diarist notes from his daily life. Klemperer demonstrates how the influence of Nazism was pervasive and penetrated every facet of daily life. Further, he shows how the ever-present images of Hitler and the swastika affected the psyches of the citizens of Germany, having a profound influence on the ways they behaved and treated one another. Modern readers, knowledgeable about the horrors of the concentration camps and the inhumanity of the Holocaust, do not understand how such an...