Jungvolk: The Story Of A Boy Defending Hitler's Third Reich
by Wilhelm R. Gehlen /
2008 / English / Mobipocket
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This is the wartime memoir of a boy named Will, who happened to be
the nephew of the head of Nazi Germany’s intelligence agency,
Foreign Armies East. After reading this book, the reader will
wonder who had the most exciting time during World War II. Will
Gehlen’s father, a trolley driver, was drafted into the Wehrmacht
to man a Sturmgeschutz assault gun in Russia. His older brother,
Len, was enlisted in the Hitlerjugend. The author, only 10 years
old when the war began, became a helper at the local Luftwaffe flak
battery, fetching ammunition. It was exciting work for Will (a
member of the “Jungvolk”) and by the end of the war he had become
expert at judging attacks. As fighter raids increased in frequency
he noted that the pilots became less skilled. Aside from aircraft
kills, Gehlen had other adventures during the war, as when his
mother dragged him to visit his aunt in Luxembourg in 1944.
Crossing the lines they found no aunt but met American troops, and
were surprised when the German Army launched an offensive,
overrunning the village and forcing US soldiers to retreat with
casualties. Making their way back to Germany was even more
perilous, until they discovered the most secure vehicles were mail
trucks. No one, not even the SS, tried to interfere with their
progress. Gehlen’s town was repeatedly bombed and he often had to
help with the wreckage or to pull survivors from basements. He
witnessed more death than a child ever should; nevertheless, his
flak battery continued firing until US tanks were almost on top of
the position. In this book Gehlen, provides an intimate glimpse of
the chaos, horror and black humor of life just behind the front
lines. As seen through the eyes of a child, who was expert in
aircraft identification and bomb weights, food-rationing and tank
types, one encounters a view of life inside Hitler’s wartime Reich
that is both fascinating and rare.