LS 5603 LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS

REVIEW OF HITLER YOUTH: GROWING UP IN HITLER'S SHADOW

A. Bartoletti, Susan Campbell. HITLER YOUTH: GROWING UP IN HITLER'S SHADOW. New York: Scholastic, 2005.

B. PLOT SUMMARY: By intermingling the coming of age stories of twelve young people and ten families with the condition of Germany and the first rumblings of Adolf Hitler in 1926 through the take over by the National Socialist (Nazi) Party in 1933 and the years of the Third Reich through the Holocaust 1935 and liberation in 1945 Bartoletti writes a compelling story that no one from grade 3 to adult should be allowed to miss.

I mention the names of the twelve young people because they are worthy of merit and note and should not be forgotten no matter their role in the now infamous period of history:

Alfons Heck, Helmuth Hubener, Dagabert (Bert) Lewyn, Karl-Heinz Schnibbe, Elisabeth Yetter, Rudolf (Rudi) Wobbe, Melita Maschmann, Henry Metelmann, Herbert Norkus, Inge, Hans, and Sophie Scholl.

C. CRITICAL ANALYSIS AND REVIEW: This oversized book could actually be called a photo essay. The pictures and text are inseparable. Informational books are chiefly used to teach and while this is an educational volume the mesmerizing style of writing is more compelling than most volumes of fiction. The subject matter is provocative and the details are highly developed to catch the reader’s interest. If the subject matter and photographs are not enough to catch the rare dullard’s interest the writing style, heavy with personal vignettes of young people will do the trick in a matter of a few pages.

The design is attractive and engaging. The photos of the 12 young people featured in the book are displayed in the front with photos that look the exact size of a school photo that would fill up a yearbook or a wallet. Little details such as these are a special draw to young people because the format is recognizable. As an adult the sense of design is equally compelling. The first photograph that I still find unfathomable is a page sized photo on page 41 of 5, 6, and 7 year old girls in white dresses bordered by their young female teachers in white dresses as they mouth the words “Heil, Hitler” and deliver the Nazi salute in an open cobblestone square. That pure evil could confuse and corrupt children this small, this tender and young is made more believable by the photo. The caption under this surreal photograph details that Hitler asked the youth to “use his name in their prayers.”

The front cover is certainly effective and compelling with a nose down photo of Adolf Hitler with his arm around what appears to be an early middle school student in full dress uniform. The back cover however draws me in more through words than pictures with the quote: “I begin with the young. We older ones are used up….But my magnificent youngsters! Look at these men and boys! What material! With them, I can create a new world.” And he almost did. This must certainly count as one of the most documented cases of exploitation in world history.

The compelling details continue page after page, chapter after chapter. One of the most poignant parts of the story tells of the bravery of the White Rose resistance movement. Started by teens Hans and Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst they are caught, tried, and condemned to die. That the guillotine was still used was an unknown fact to this adult reader. I associated the guillotine with an earlier and more primitive time in history picturing King Louie XVI and the French Revolution.

The personalized accounts add much to the book and the fascinating and rather macabre comparison of the typical German student to the three beheaded students was used most effectively.

The book’s dates and historical occurrences can be corroborated in other books about the same era in history, and from primary sources. The wealth of pictures used in the book were taken from credible sources such as The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, The National Archives, the online photographic collection of The Library of Congress and Berlin’s Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz. The author is careful to give a photographer credit for each photograph that can be documented.

I see the book as a hybrid being at once a book of “Journals and Interviews”, “Traditional Chapter Book Format”, and “Informational Picture Books.” Such a superb book can only rarely fit into stereotypical pigeon holes.

The three young adults were beheaded by the guillotine as noted in the following text, “Immediately after the trial, Hans and Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst were led to the execution room in Stadelheim prison and beheaded. The prison warden reported that the three young people bore themselves with marvelous bravery. “They were led off, the girl first,” said the warden. “She want without the flicker of an eyelash. None of us understood how this could be possible. The executioner said he had never seen anyone meet his end as she did,” I immediately began to think of the beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots ordered by Elizabeth the first. Surely Sophie was equally brave.

The text continues, “Just before Hans placed his head on the guillotine block, he shouted out, “Long live freedom!” The words rang throughout the huge prison.” Upon reading this I could only think of William Wallace as portrayed in the movie “Braveheart.” We hear as we finish reading the chapter that less than 2 hours after the “White Rose” beheadings that students from the University of Munich led a pro-Nazi demonstration condemning the students. Sophie had hoped and believed the students would be stirred to action against the Nazis.

Intriguing details appear throughout the text. A fact that was very eye opening to me and I imagine would very much intrigue a young boy is how the very young males were 9/10ths of the Nazi military force. A great example is how a cadre of 14 and 15 year old boys worked day and night to dig a type of ditch or trench around Berlin that was 18 feet wide and 15 feet deep. Their hard work and sleepless nights kept out all enemy tanks and machinery.

D. Review Excerpts:
School Library Journal notes, (Starred Review) Grade 5-8–Hitler's plans for the future of Germany relied significantly on its young people, and this excellent history shows how he attempted to carry out his mission with the establishment of the Hitler Youth, or Hitlerjugend, in 1926. With a focus on the years between 1933 and the end of the war in 1945, Bartoletti explains the roles that millions of boys and girls unwittingly played in the horrors of the Third Reich.

Booklist states,
*Starred Review* Gr. 7-10. “What was it like to be a teenager in Germany under Hitler? Bartoletti draws on oral histories, diaries, letters, and her own extensive interviews with Holocaust survivors, Hitler Youth, resisters, and bystanders to tell the history from the viewpoints of people who were there. Most of the accounts and photos bring close the experiences of those who followed Hitler and fought for the Nazis, revealing why they joined, how Hitler used them, what it was like…..the stirring photos tell more of the story. One particularly moving picture shows young Germans undergoing de-Nazification by watching images of people in the camps. The handsome book design, with black-and-white historical photos on every double-page spread, will draw in readers and help spark deep discussion, which will extend beyond the Holocaust curriculum. The extensive back matter is a part of the gripping narrative. “

Reviews from:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0439353793/ref=dp_proddesc_0/103-7575722-4136600?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

Connections:

A book about one of the teens mentioned in the above is SOPHIE SCHOLL AND THE WHITE ROSE RESISTANCE by Jud Newborn and Annette Dumbach.

Another book for young people about Hitler’s Germany is Eleanor Ayer’s PARALLEL JOURNEY.

For a student that likes informational history volumes in general I would heartily recommend the Newbery winner by the same author: BLACK POTATOES: THE STORY OF THE GREAT IRISH FAMINE, 1845-1850.