The German Point of View

Tony Bradman Bruno and Frida 

   

Key Stage 2, 3 

The story is set at the end of World War II as the Russians start to occupy Nazi Germany. Bruno’s mother is killed as the Russians attack. Bruno is befriended by the dog Frida, and by an old lady who takes him in for a while.  Frida is a suicide bomber dog and Bruno’s first task when he meets her is to remove her vest. 

Emma Craigie  Chocolate Cake with Hitler 

Key Stage 2,3 
 


Helga's childhood as the eldest of five children in Germany's First Family has been a gilded one, accompanying her parents to parties and rallies, moving between the city and their idyllic country estate. But the war has changed everything. And now, as defeat closes in on the Germans, Helga must move into a bunker in the heart of Berlin with her family and key members of the crumbling Nazi leadership - to be with their beloved Hitler. There is chocolate cake for tea every day with Uncle Leader, but Helga cannot help noticing that all is not well among the grown-ups. As each day passes, her underground world becomes increasingly tense and strange. There are tears and shouting behind slammed doors, and when even the soldiers who have been guarding them take their leave, Helga is faced with a terrible truth. Perhaps her perfect childhood has not been all that it seemed...
This has a gruesome ending. Those who do not know this history will be left guessing. The ending will make a good discussion point in any case. The protagonist is Helga, Goebbels' twelve year old daughter and the setting is Hitler's bunker during the final days.       

 

Alexandra Nancy Elze Der Bund Deutscher Mädel

Scholars 
 



An account of the BDM, the girls' branch of the Hitler Youth. 

Guido Knopp Hitler's Children 

Adults / scholars


A title in Guido Knopp's series on Germany's Nazi past. "Hitler's Children" provides a comprehensive history of the young generation under Nazism, accompanied by much hitherto unpublished material and dozens of eye-witness accounts.

Erika Mann Zehn Millionen Kinder

Adults / scholars
 


The daughter of  Thomas Mann discusses education under the Nazi regime. However, for those who read German fluently it is an absorbing read. Mann understands what happened and even brings in some humour and mild ridicule.  

Erika and Klaus Mann

Adults 


An insight into the life of two German journalists.

 

Alexander Shuk  Europäische Hochschulschriften

Scholars 
ISSN 0531-7398 / 3-631-39269-9
About the school curriculum, Hitler Youth and BDM

Hester Vaizey Surviving Hitler's War 

Adults / scholars



This vivid recreation of family life as experienced in Nazi Germany during and after the Second World War tells the stories of mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, parents and children, in their own words. From desperate last letters sent to their loved ones by doomed soldiers at Stalingrad, to diaries kept by women trying to keep their families alive as the cities they lived in were devastated by constant bombing raids, this book presents a new and often unfamiliar account of family life under the most extreme conditions. Far from disintegrating under the strain, as many historians have argued, this book shows that the German family maintained and even strengthened the emotional bonds that tied its members together. Entering the war shaped, moulded and directed by the massive pressures brought to bear on it by Nazism's attempt to recast German society in its own image, the German family resisted these pressures and emerged at the end of the war in a new and stronger form, surviving the manifold problems of reunion and readjustment to the postwar, post-Nazi world with a surprising degree of resilience.

Marianne Wheelaghan The Blue Suitcase 

Adult / young adult

 

It is 1932, Silesia, Germany, and the eve of Antonia's 12th birthday. Hitler's Brownshirts and Red Front Marxists are fighting each other in the streets. Antonia doesn't care about the political unrest but it's all her family argue about. Then Hitler is made Chancellor and order is restored across the country, but not in Antonia's family. The longer the National Socialists stay in power, the more divided the family becomes with devastating consequences. Unpleasant truths are revealed and terrible lies uncovered. Antonia thinks life can't get much worse - and then it does. Partly based on a true-life story, Antonia's gripping diary takes the reader inside the head of an ordinary teenage girl growing up. Her journey into adulthood, however, is anything but ordinary.