So, I’m just about finished with Every Man Dies Alone, which concerns the fictionalized account of some working class resisters in Berlin. Pretty decent read, and an interesting story, but it’s whet my appetite a different perspective.
I’ve only recently become aware of the Napola schools, and I’m interested in some stuff that comes from the perspective of youth that came of age in the Reich. Doesn’t have to be fiction or non-fiction, idealistic or critical about the Nazis, but I’m looking for realism from people that were well connected. Politically connected more than financially. Thanks,
Oh, and I’ve already put Before the Fall on my list.
Ceremony of Innocence by James D. Forman is a beautiful novelization of the true story of Sophie Scholl and the White Rose resistance movement. It’s a YA novel; I read it circa 1971 when I was in 6th or 7th grade (because I preferred to read at several levels above the actual grade I was in) and that was how I first learned of the White Rose.
When I went to college in St. Louis, I made friends with a guy whose German immigrant mother had taken part in the White Rose as a young student. MASSIVE RESPECT. It was thanks to Ceremony of Innocence that I appreciated how incredibly cool that was when I learned of her story. When I first knew her she seemed like any ordinary middle-aged Hausfrau and suddenly she was the greatest hero I’d ever known personally.
Ever since reading Ceremony of Innocence, I have liked to snack on rosetted radishes sprinkled with kosher salt to accompany my beer, just because that was mentioned in passing when the White Rose kids were at a Biergarten. I think they’d count as “young élites” because they were university students, when a college education was out of reach of most hoi polloi. But good luck finding a copy; it’s long out of print.
Albert Speer’s Inside the Third Reich has a lot on how a smart, well-educated, capable young man became a top advisor to Hitler despite not being a particularly devout Nazi.
I read a book a few years ago that was a nonfiction account of a woman who grew up in Nazi Germany before/during the war, and who was a full-fledged member of the Hitler Youth. It might be Hitler’s Mountain, but I’m not 100% sure.
Regardless, that looks like a pretty good book, and gets decent reviews.
Well, I’m familiar with the story of** Sophie Scholl**, although not that book, but that’s not what I’m looking for.
In Every Man Dies Alone, one of the characters is a student at a Napola school, where he’s being groomed for leadership in the next generation. 16-18 years old, and he believes hard. Sure, he’s gonna be canon fodder in a couple of years, but for now things look good. That’s what I’m interested in.
There’s a book called HITLER’S CHILDREN that’s about the children of the Nazi “nobility”: Göring, Himmler, Hess, etc… They run the gamut ideologically: some are apologetically and enthusiastically proud of their fathers, others live in constant guilt and shame, and many just want to get over it and live their lives.