Workforce Language Services

Language can be a powerful weapon. In this case, the grandson of a mid-ranking German official who opposed the rise of the Nazi regim kept a detailed diary of the injustices they inflicted. And after more than 40 years, the grandson finally completed the translation of the document. Now armed with the diary, he hope to continue his grandfather’s work of opposing unjust regimes. Read more.

Almost 50 years ago, Robert Scott Kellner said, he made a promise to his aging grandparents living in a small German town.

He told the couple that he would translate the diary his grandfather wrote in which he detailed his opposition to the Nazi regime. Kellner said he vowed to use it to fight tyranny and terrorism.

It took him 43 years, but he kept his word.

In 1960, he painstakingly started to translate almost 900 pages of old German script into English. Since finishing, the College Station man has worked to bring the diary, which his grandfather titled “Mein Widerstand [My Opposition],” to the public’s attention.

“I’ve been working on it my entire adult life,” he said Friday.

My Opposition: The Diaries of Friedrich Kellner, a Canadian documentary on the diary and Kellner’s quest, premieres at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum.

…Kellner said he believes his grandfather’s diary can be used as a weapon against terrorism and is committed to doing just that.

Friedrich Kellner, a mid-ranking German official in post-World War I Germany, faced persecution for opposing the Nazis before Hitler rose to power and during World War II. As an active member of the opposing Social Democratic Party, he kept a secret diary in old German script detailing the injustices of the Nazi regime, Kellner explained.

The diary stayed hidden until 1960, when Kellner, whose father had immigrated to the United States in 1935, stopped in Germany en route to Saudi Arabia with the U.S. Navy, he said.