Chapter 1 Summary and Analysis

Under the Nazis, German children have to join the Jungvolk, the Hitler Youth's junior branch, though in fact basic training for membership in the army of the Third Reich begins at six, in elementary school.

Alfons Heck, the author, was born in Wittlich, twenty-five miles east of Franch in the Rhineland. His family emigrated from France in 1770 and in 1933, Wittlich has only 8000 or so people, yet is a count-set and a trade center. Under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, the Rhineland has been placed under French occupation for 15 years. In 1936, Nazi troops march into Wittlich and the people cheer with joy. Alfons remembers being a young child watching the brown-shirts march through town. Hitler is there, in an open Mercedes. Hitler means a new Germany.

The children of the 1930s know nothing of the Weimar Republic's turmoil or freedom. The Nazis revolutionize...