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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Mar 2005, 288 pages
Paperback:
Feb 2006, 304 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
From the book jacket: In 1937, three-year-old Irmgard Hunt was photographed
sitting on Hitler's knee; it was one of her parents' proudest moments.
Hunt's memoir is an intimate glimpse into a German childhood under the Third
Reich in the small Bavarian village of Berchtesgaden (close to Hitler's Eagle's
Nest headquarters). This is not an apology on behalf of her homeland,
instead she tells of an ordinary family's survival in insane times, and
reveals memories of an era when a civilized nation's moral compass broke down
and its people lost their way.
Comment: Memoirs written by survivors of WWII are plentiful; but where are the
memoirs of the ordinary Germans who considered themselves moral, honorable, and
hardworking, who voted Hitler into power and supported him to the bitter end?
According to Irmgard Hunt there are few, if any, such accounts because once the
Nazi years were over her parents generation had no wish to dwell on their participation in the
Third Reich. So, as Irmgard writes, 'It was left to the next generation -- my own -- to seek to
discover what people thought, knew, and chose to do and how it was possible for
Hitler to receive their silent cooperation and often enthusiastic support. A
universal answer may never be found, but perhaps an examination of just one
family, mine, can provide additional understanding of what paved the way to
Hitler's success and led to wholesale disaster.'
I thought this to be an exceptionally readable and interesting book.
By focusing on the microcosm of her own family and their neighbors,
Irmgard's memoir shows how it was possible for a nation to fall willingly under
Hitler's power - one family at a time.
"This vital memoir reveals a child's-eye view of the brutal impact of Nazism and
the ravages of World War II on nonmilitary Germans. Hunt's is a precautionary
reminder of what can happen when an ordinary society chooses a cult of
personality over rational thought. Highly recommended." -- Library Journal.
This review was originally published in March 2005, and has been updated for the
February 2006 paperback release.
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