Requiem for a German Past: A Boyhood Among the Nazis Book

"A sensitive and illuminating portrait of a tragic period in the history of a nation and a culture." -Theodore S. Hamerow, author of On the Road to the Wolf's Lair: German Resistance to Hitler "I believe academia and the general public want to hear from Jurgen Herbst and others like him, and though there are other such recollections in print, they are few and most are in German, and none that I know of is better written in English than this one." -Reece C. Kelly, Fort Lewis College Jurgen Herbst's account of growing up in Nazi Germany from 1928 to 1948 is a boy's experience of anti-Semitism and militarism from the inside. His father was a loving parent, a scholar, a man of principle-and a German officer. Herbst was a middle-class boy in a Lutheran family that saw value in Prussian military ideals and a mythic German past. His is a compelling tale of moral awakening. He recalls his confusion as some of his classmates are no longer welcome at his school, and his consternation as he tries to reconcile what he learned from his favorite teachers and what was subsequently taught by their party replacements. His description of walking to school the morning after Kristallnacht is clear and chilling. A Hitler youth in the making, he joined the Jungvolk and slowly became aware of the real nature of the National Socialist regime. The story of that evolution-a unique, insider's view of the Nazi youth movement-is inspired by young Jurgen's deep friendships with his fellow students and their dedication to a military code of personal honor and loyalty. His devotion to those young men allowed him to endure scorn and deprivation and to risk personal well-being, even life, in the face of a brutal evil that demanded unquestioning allegiance.Read More