ePub A Child of Hitler: Germany in the Days When God Wore a Swastika by Alfons Heck in History

Review

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. A Different Look at the Third ReichBy Richard C. GeschkeThis book will verify the old saying that a person is a product of his or her environment. Alfons Heck was born in Bavaria in 1927 and since the thousand years Third Reich of Adolph Hitler lasted 12 years from 1933 to 1945 Alfons formative years were influenced by the Third Reich. Heck knew nothing else in the morals and duties of a good and just person. He cut his teeth in the Jungvolk and later as a leader in the Hitler Youth. He was indoctrinated in all aspects of the Nazi regime. The author tells us step by step of how he became a Nazi. The parades he led as a youth leader and later of his training to become a Luftwaffe pilot. As a trainee with no airplane to fly; he actually became a junior lieutenant on the West Wall in preparing defense fortifications against the Americans. His telling of the final days of the war in his town which was utterly destroyed and what happened upon his capture by the Americans. Since he knew of no other allegiance to anybody but the Nazis; Herr Heck had to come to terms as to what the Nationalist Socialist Party was in fact in the awful realities of the Holocaust and their treatment of the Polish and the Slavs represented a terrible government to all the civilized world. This book shows a seldom used approach about this awful 12 year reign of terror.2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Helps in understandingBy jjkI was born in Germany; was four years old when the war ended; too young to have any direct knowledge of what happened in Hitler's Germany. The author was sixteen when the war ended and had lived through the indoctrination that all German children had to endure.He explains how the party misused the enthusiasm of the young people; how hatred of the Jews; the Poles; and the Bolshevist was taught as a daily diet in schools and the youth organizations; how children were taught that the "Reich" as created by Hitler was more important than their lives and that to die for the fatherland was the highest honor. He also does not try to weasel out of the responsibility for being an important part of the whole criminal "Weltanschauung" (how to see the world).He does not try to explain how the whole German nation could fall under Hitler's evil spell but the book left me with a better understanding of what happened to the young; and how horrible it would have been if Germany had won Wold War II with this young generation being in charge.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Read this for a history class and really enjoyed it. Easy to readBy HazVery interesting read. Textbook brainwashing techniques used on young children by the Nazis. But this is what any oppressive regime does. Read this for a history class and really enjoyed it. Easy to read. Gives perspective on a contentious issue.