Victor Klemperer’s LTI: Notizbuch eines Philologen was published in Soviet-occupied Germany in 1947. It contains a significant inconsistency where his effusive praise of Soviet Russia and Communism seems contradicted by certain very cryptic and undeveloped allusions to the language of the new regime as ‘die Sprache des Vierten Reiches’. The demise of the GDR in 1990 made possible the publication of Klemperer’s diaries for the years 1933 to 1945. These diaries, which include detailed and explicit criticisms of Soviet Communism both during the Third Reich and in the months immediately following the defeat of Nazi Germany, now allow us to reconstruct the history of how and why LTI came to be published in 1947 in its present form. This in turn enables us to understand the above inconsistency and contradiction which have been a bone of contention for commentators since LTI first appeared.