ABSTRACT
This chapter examines translation and interpreting during the Nazi and Ffascist period in the years 1933–-1945 in Europe with reference to a wide range of issues and questions raised in the context of the nature and the role of the profession as well as status of the agents involved in translation and interpreting. The findings presented in the chapter are based on historical studies, documentary materials, and memoirs of witnesses from that period, that is professionals and ad hoc appointed linguistic mediators, as well as other stakeholders, numerous observers, and participants in the historical events of that time. In particular, three sets of problems are studied here. At first, the chapter analyzses translation and interpreting in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy with particular focus on translation and interpreting requirements; organization, training, and access to the profession; and the role of propaganda, ideology, and censorship in the translation industry. The second part is devoted to translation and the translator within the apparatus of repression;: in prisons, Gestapo facilities, and Nazi concentration camps, as well as military translation. Finally, the last part concerns translation and interpreting in countries under Nazi occupation as evidenced in case studies from France, Poland, and Latvia. This article contributes to the discussion on the role of translation and interpreting in a dictatorial state, where ideology prevailed, and racialized discourse focused on cleansing society of alien elements and promoting the superiority of Nazi or fFascist culture over all others.
