Boy Soldiers

HELENE MUNSON

The role of the Hitler Jugend and BDM in shaping the minds of young Germans leading up to WWII is well enough known, the story here is a personal one. It’s of a teenage recruit manning AA guns at age 15 and roped in to combat operations in Czechoslavakia by the age of 17. Sent from his home in South America to better himself in the German education system, it all became preparation for military duty.

There’s a lot of self-indulgent, “I did this” from the author and her father’s story is not remarkable, plus much of this is hardly untold as Tim Heath’s books in particular have already drawn the curtains back on the life of young people in Nazi Germany.

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• The History Press

• ISBN 978-0-7509-9711-9

• 276 pages • Hardback • £20