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Title: Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow
ISBN: 0439353793
Author:
Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Publicate Date: 2005-04-01
Publish: 2005-04-01
List Price: $19.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $7.13
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $7.12
Amazon Merchant Price: $13.57
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Wow - Incredible Resource
I cannot say enough about how impressed I was by this book. For students in Jr High and up, this is an incredible resource on teenage life in Nazi Germany. This book will bring WWII to life for them in a dramatic and immediate way.
The book follows many different "normal" teens through these years, discussing which options were available to each of them and what the results were of the decisions they made. The pictures and first hand accounts bring to life a period of time that could otherwise seem far too distant and foreign to teens. In reading this book, teens will see how such atrocities happened - and more importantly perhaps, realize that it could happen again.
This book is a fantastic jumping off point for stressing the importance of critical thinking. There are so many aspects in the book to explore and discuss with groups or assign as independent projects. I HIGHLY recommend this book for jr/senior high.
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2: The young in the Nazi Empire.
Hitler tried to create a terrible new order and one of his instruments was the Hitler Youth. By brainwashing and influencing the young, he created a cadre of fanitical youth willing to die for his twisted goals.
This short photographic book shows the rise and fall of the HJ and how their energy contributed to the prolongation of the war and the horrors of Nazi injustice.
Even though this book is for the younger reader, adults can gain new insight by reading about what Hitler planned with his core of youth followers. Thankfully the Allies prevailed in this war, rather than let the HJ follow through on murderous policies.
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3: Ach Tung Babies
This is more of a picture book than a historical novel. The pictures are ones I have yet to see in my library of other WII references. The opening page has a spectacular photo of a very young boy probably around 5, standing at attention in full nazi decorum. There are some chapter stories of various personal events that provide a eye witness account as to the culture, frenzy and social pressues that were in effect at the time. Place this book on your coffee table and it is sure to spark conversation with any house guest!
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4: a different aspect of Nazi Germany from 1933-1945
Over the past two weeks I have read the book Hitler Youth: Growing up in Hitler's Shadow, by Susan Campbell Bartoletti. This book shows the Nazi regime of World War2 from 1933-1945 at it's worst on the front lines and at home. During this terrible time in germany's history, textbooks were thrown out for racist and Nazi ideas of hatred for Jews. Young kids in Germany during WW2 were eventually forced to participate in the Hitler Youth program, and girls were placed in the BDM. This book takes you to one of the most overlooked parts of the war and it is truly a great book to read that puts a different aspect of WW2 that not all soldiers were the Jew killers and many actually rebelled against Hitler. To fully understand the last "Great War" you must read this book.
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5: Biased didacticism, not history.
Halfway through listening to this book on CD, I wondered why it seemed like the author was talking down to me. The writing was very simplistic and the extremely irritating narrator felt obligated to remind us that Nazism was bad by reading every race-related word with the utmost sarcasm possible, e.g. "Hitler wanted a 'puuuuure' (tee-hee) 'Aaaaaryan' (rotfl!) 'race' (hahahaha!)." This book also felt the need to explain even the most elemental German terms, the most hilarious being when the author told us that "Heil Hitler" means "Hail Hitler" in English. I was kind of offended at the condescension until I finally looked at the CD case and saw that the book was meant for grade-school kids. It contains some interesting accounts of time in the Hitler Youth, but nothing too revelatory. I guess the point of writing this book was to tell kids that racism is bad and not to be conformist. The author goes overboard though by declaring that "All scientists agree that race is only skin deep". (That quote may not be verbatim.) Even leaving aside questions of intelligence, that statement is a blatant lie, as widely varying racial susceptibility to heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc. will attest. Does Ms. Campbell Bartoletti really want children to be independent thinkers, or does she merely want to indoctrinate them in her own egalitarian ideology?
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