Customer Reviews

Hitler's Last Courier

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You would -very much- enjoy this book for the following reasons:
* It is very informative. It is a social analysis of the Nazi Germany. You come to understand everyday life in Germany and how they (especially the younger ones) were indoctrinated, why they supported Hitler, even in the desperate final days. "We were willing to forgo our lives, as a sacrifice for Fuehrer and fatherland". "In the great scheme of things, we had been taught, our individual lives belonged to the nation. Not for us to live on, but for the nation to survive".
* It is an easy read. The book was divided into many chapters.
* Well-written. It reads almost like a novel. Other than the historical information, the author writes about his personal experiences which are not related to history that's being written around him, like the chapter "love and lust". These personal stories don't take away from the book or become a distraction; they add literary beauty.
Overall, very good book.

The incredible, gripping autobiography of author Lehmann, the "last courier" to Adolf Hitler in his infamous bunker, tells his story with sensitivity and brave candor. This large volume is constantly fascinating for WW2 enthusiasts, especially because of his unique perspective as a German "insider." Lehmann's wit and wisdom are apparent throughout and one particular paragraph stood out for me as a summation of his message: "How difficult it must be for all those who live in a democracy, used to a free press and to open exchange of opinions, used to a multiple-party system or, at least, to a two-party system, to understand the one track mind of youth in a dictatorship." Eye opening and candid, this is work of passion and immense detail...not to be missed. It will change the way you look at film of the masses...to realize that every face has a name and a story all his/her own. Especially timely with our current global turmoil.

When first encouraged to read this very personal, intuitive, and horrifyingly detailed account of history, I hesitated. Being like-minded to author Armin D. Lehmanns more gentle, peaceful side, I questioned if I could make it through an honest, full read of this book. Taking much longer to read than anticipated, there were times that I had to put it down wishing compassionately that this young man could have also put down the situations he found himself in.

As with every hardship in life, and especially with such atrocious hardships, its important to give an honest read. Its imperative to recognize the part that evil plays in some situations. Its been a difficult personal journey for me to follow Lehmann through his book. Yet I am so very grateful for the courage he had to relive these details and share them with the world. A world that still harbors people who believe he should be punished for things he did not  could not  know he was contributing to. I believe that if they gave an honest read, they too would understand a different side of the truth in this historical occurrence.

Right from the first sentence, author Lehmann captures the essence of childhood thoughts and actions relative to anyone. The suffocating agony of crying uncontrollably - for whatever reason  is the first readers learn of Lehmanns amazing ability to describe normal, every day occurrences in a way he remembers feeling them. Boys crying, another fading stigma in society, provides deep insight.

Lehmann mentions a fairy tale he wrote later in life, while the first part of his novel speaks of the fairytale-like childhood he experienced in the forests of Germany surrounded by loving family. A few issues explored are a child in conflict with parents beliefs, hiding a forbidden soccer ball in a friends garage, fantasizing being a hero in his countrys military, feeling inadequate about not living up to his fathers political party ambitions, striving to understand his Fathers rejection of his aunt because of differing political values, and defying that rejection by continuing after school visits to her. Trying to understand his familys fear of free-spirited gypsies, exploring his own pleasures and fears of motorcycles, and nurturing forest pets are others. Readers learn some, many, or all of Lehmanns experiences and childhood memories.

In 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland and Germany went to war, the child Armin waved proudly to troops as they left for battle, with some of them waving back. He kept copious notes of special bulletins of the war and victories proclaimed. What American child hasnt felt pride that his country was defending its homeland as evidenced recently with flags across America after another worldwide tragedy on September 11, 2001? In an age when news wasnt instantaneously available through satellites and air waves, the people of Germany knew only what Hitler chose for them to know.

Tracing his life and thoughts through the years of Jungvolk Camp, Lehmann permits the reader a view of German youth and the information allowed to citizens of his country in that era. Lehmann maintains an insightful observation of his feelings then and now, and the connection to those childhood feelings. Simple occurrences like buying hiking shoes large enough to fit several thick pairs of socks were an economic necessity in youth and they had to last through several years of growth. This is a continuing practice for him today, just for comfort.

Serendipitous occurrences throughout the war followed the author. Losing contact with friend Rudi and never locating him again is reminiscent of childhood friends we all may have lost track of. In the midst of battle, he finds himself staring at a corpse being loaded onto a wagon before recognizing his childhood friend Dieter as that corpse. Losing contact with his family during the war, he later learned that while his Mother and siblings were in one train leaving Dresden, he was being sidetracked in another train on the same track, and that his Father was also in Dresden as a patient.

Lehmann describes being called to meet Hitler in person near the wars end with thoughts that finally he would make his Father proud. Meeting Hitler, being chosen as a personal courier to the Reich Youth Leader eventually lead him to deliver some of Hitlers last dispatches. Meeting Hitlers mistress Eva Braun who became his wife on the eve of their suicide, and being an integral part of Hitlers last moments of reign afforded Lehmann an unprecedented look at history.

He describes being paralyzed during the Breakout, being interrogated, and carefully telling the truth to questions although not offering additional information. He was horrified watching documentaries General Eisenhower ordered about the concentration camps. Having believed from childhood that people were sent to concentration camps for rehabilitation and release, he struggled to believe a comrade who said these movies were made in Hollywood. Yet he intuitively knew this to be false. Said the author; I agonized physically and mentally. My whole belief system crashed, and, only gradually, established itself anew. Again, like many shifts in beliefs people sometimes hit rock bottom before they emerge to a new truth, albeit most citizens of the world have not experienced the heinous occurrences Lehmann did to learn this lesson.

Ill always have images of the horrors Lehmann suffered through, and yet gratefully, I will keep with me the last words in his novel. I see the new Millennium as a challenge for future generations to gradually transform our planet, non-violently into a world for one humanity. Not to hate! Not to cause unnecessary pain! Not to afflict cruelties! Not to kill! We have to start with the minds of our children and be willing to give up some of our freedoms whose effects can be too destructive and therefore endanger others...The challenge for the third millennium is co-existence and values based on the truth. Sanctity of life is dependent upon our devotion to freedom.

Born in Germany, Armin Lehmann was four years old when Hitler came to power. In the impressionable years of childhood, he was indoctrinated with the principles and goals of Nazi socialism - at home by his father, at school by his teachers. His friends parroted the messages and his beloved radio was the main purveyor of the doctrines of Hitler.

As I read this book, I remembered my own childhood during WWII. Growing up in California, learning hatred for the Japanese and Germans and blind patriotism for the USA. It never occurred to me to doubt or question just as it did not occur to Armin. He was a child and had no basis for comparison with what he was being told. When his lessons in courtesy and respect taught him to assist an elderly, blind Jewish woman across the street, an older teen beat him up to teach him a greater lesson about consorting with Jews.

By age sixteen as the war drew to a close, he was compelled to be a soldier in the Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth). Wounded during his first engagement, he was assigned the role of courier for Artur Axmann (leader of the Hitler Jugend and, at the end of the war, commander of the Hitler Youth Home Defense Force which included a close-combat tank destruction brigade named after him).
Axmann took refuge in the cellars of the Party Chancellery in Berlin and Armin came with him - one of the last couriers of the Third Reich. He, like the other children bearing messages directly in the line of fire, was frequently wounded. Unlike most of the others, he survived.
Armin not only carried messages but assisted in the Infirmary with the wounded and in searching out supplies. When possible, he helped carry the bodies of the fallen back where they could be buried. It was also his role to take messages to Hitler, Bormann, Goebbels and others sheltered in the Fuehrerbunker.
In the final days, he and Axmann moved into the bunker complex where Armin witnessed the events surrounding the wedding and the suicide of the leader that he had so admired and followed. As I saw Hitler from Armin's eyes I realized what a pathetic, though evil, person he was. I was struck by the kindness Eva Braun showed to the exhausted young boy. What would lead a woman like this to marry a man like Hitler - to go to death with him?
This was a fascinating book because of the insight into the day-to-day life of a soldier in war, the molding of a young mind to believe things that were terribly wrong, the horror and tragedy of war for men, women, children and animals, the final days of men whose names after 60 years still send chills, and as a powerful reminder of the importance of a democracy, a free press and an open society.

Review February, 2003
Reviewer: Claus Hackenberger, Author of the book A LONG WALK
So that the reader of this review may fully embrace its content, I need to provide some background.
Both, Armin and I were raised in Germany during the time Hitler came to power, marched into Poland, France and Russia. Armin was four in 1932. I am a year older. I was born where Armin was raised, namely in Silesia. Schweidnitz, Schreiberhau, Breslau, all towns and cities where at one time or another we literally were neighbors.
Both of us wrote down our accounts here in America within the last three or four years, and truly without knowing of each other.
We recently met in Bend Oregon where we made presentations at the High Desert Forum and at several High and Middle Schools. We exchanged books. And I am offering now my review of his work.
Armin wrote in his introduction, I quote: "It takes many reeds to create a basket to be filled with contribution for progress. I hope that after my life is over, my wife Kim, the children and children's children will carry the basket and keep it filled."
In its purest form, that is der Mensch Armin. Talking with him, looking into his eyes I instantly fathom the pain he that has left its deep scar.
He describes events such that whole paragraphs could be exchanged between our biographies. What Armin wrote I do authenticate. He did an immense amount of research, tells about happenings that only peripherally passed by me. With sixteen I was drafted to be a soldier while he remained in the Hitler Youth.
Armin's family is alive through out his book, from the beginning to the bitter end.
As I, he also was proud to wear his uniform, believed in the warped Nazi ideologies that distorted our souls and the ones of uncountable other children.
On either side of the fence there are heroes, brave people who are pressed to hate one another, while with their hearts they want to be friends. Armin's words attest to that.
Towards the end I hear him speak of loneliness and despair, yet with almost every sentence his will to live, to survive outdoes all the horrific hours he had to endure.

This book adjusts the focus that over time has been blurred by denial of what war is really about. Timely? Yes, very timely.
I am so elated I met Armin Lehmann. You can meet him too.

Author Armin Lehmann possesses a sole right to this book's title, both now and forever. He most probably was the last surviving courier lad available in the Berlin bunker to serve Adlof Hitler, "the Führer". Moreover, Hitler (together with his longtime mistress, Eva Braun, now his last-moment wife) was about to kill himself even as the youth, ignorant of that fact, departed on his final, almost certainly suicidal mission.
For Russian tanks rumbled up the street behind him as he ran for dear life, their guns firing after him ...
Such is the essentially final, certainly climactic scene, set in mid-1945, of "Hitler's Last Courier"; whereas Lehmann's memoirs begin with also often horrifying family scenes, dominated by his overbearing Nazi father, dating from the early 1930s.
The whole 15-year span deserves our study and understanding, for only by realizing the bitterness of such a brutal upbringing can we appreciate the realities of its consequences such as the boy's simultaneous hatred of and avid desire to please his father, and his suceptibility to brainwashing and the acceptance of rank misinformation.
Even as young Armin's perspective outgrew his family's heavy influence, there was precious little relief; for now the state's constant oppression, hypocrisies, and lies could simply take over mastery as the dominant theme in his life, leading even to war.
Our word "incredible" is badly overworked, and for someone like myself, born in 1932 and still able to recall both prewar times and the vast changes that swept over us even in Canada from Sept. 1939 onward - for instance, the loss of my dear cousin Leslie over the English Channel in 1940, and those stabs of fear as German U-boats torpedoed ships and killed men right here in the St. Lawrence River - I unfortunately know all too well how tragically credible this book really is.
Buy the work, then, by all means! - together with such overview works as Sir Winston Churchill's compendious non-fiction series (for its broad perspectives as much as anything) and Erich Maria Remaque's war fiction (for its complementary human insights), if you are able.
I do however hope to see a Second Edition someday, providing photos, maps, and a table of major events during the period covered.
The present edition is a marvel; the next will surely excel, although a roomfull of books would be needed to tell the entire tale of such a massive, far-reaching conflict as World War II.

At a time when young suicide bombers are blowing themselves up, and their victims, I ask myself why? How can one so young destroy their lives for a cause? The author describes his own experiences with Naziism, the propganda and brainwashing, that made him want to fight for his country. Much of what is writen can help one understand why someone so young can have such motivation, have such encounters with near death, to observe brutalities yet continue on until the end of the Third Reich. Recovering from serious wounds, suffered during the war, and learning of the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis during this time, he was able to reflect on his upbringing, and the teachings of his Nazi father, and educators. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in understanding what it was like to be a youth in Nazi Germany.

I saw Mr. Lehmann on the History Channel and was spellbound by his tale. I immediately secured a copy of his book. It's too bad it took him so many years to write this book, he explains that many of his notes and diaries were lost over the years and even states that his memory may be flawed in some details and dates. No matter, the gist of his story is so powerful that minor details make little difference. The most powerful part of this book is not the combat descriptions of the 3rd Reich in it's death agonies but rather the observations he recalls from his youth in the comfortable retrospect of 50 years hindsight. He describes how changes that occured around him as the Nazis gained power effected his everyday life, for example as a young boy in school there was pressure to shun a hunchbacked boy, or how helping a blind jewish woman cross the street lead to his being reprimanded. The attempts at acceptance lead him to reconcile many things in his mind that later he would reconize as poison. It is easy to brainwash youth, they only know what they have exposure to the 3rd Reich is quite possibly the largest scale example of mass brainwashing on record. He speaks about how all the films of the era were selected and screened by Nazi propaganda ministers to ensure that the viewer was left with a certain message or image. The need to sacrifice and die for the Fuehrer was a repeated theme, as was that of communist or jewish enemies of the state violating German women and/or territories. Mr. Lehmann describes the tests/camps and expectations that were placed on German youth, he describes both boys and girls training and how they differed. He describes his budding sexuality under the Nazi moral codes and how it was acceptable for healthy, young German men and women to have childern outside of marriage because that was viewed as being good for the country. There is much in this book of value to all those interested in learning about life under the Nazi regime. His descriptions of meeting powerful historical figures associated with the 3rd Reich may disapoint some as they involve little beyond brief physical descriptions. One must remember that as a 16 year old runner he was not privy to inside information and mainly only watched a parade of high ranking Nazis come and go while he waited in vain for Hitler's miracle weapons to save them from defeat. Having read Hanna Reitsch's book I was happy to see that Mr. Lehmann included his observations of her on her dramatic visit to the bunker, she was one of his few female hero's, he was able to meet her twice and he describes those meetings in this book. Like most other Germans he was unaware (his claims) of the destruction of European Jews. His combat actions with the Hitler Youth and the Waffen SS are fascinating and vividly portray what a shooting gallery early 1945 Germany had become, he was even shot while riding in an hospital train! Nearly incinerated in Dresden he survived to fight, be captured by drunken Russians, escape, fight again, be decorated and finaly selected to serve in the Fuehrer Bunker. His observations of his relatives in this difficult time will keep your attention, his father the die-hard Nazi even after the defeat, his grandmother showing him a pistol she had to defend herself and possibly even kill herself if the advancing Russians got too violent. Mislead to the end, the suicdes of top Nazi's caught him off guard. He describes the attempted breakouts to the west to escape the Russian hordes. Needless to say he survived, how he did is a pretty amazing story. All told he was a minor figure in the grand scheme of things placed in a critial location at a critical time. For more in depth combat descriptions of the fighting for Berlin try reading THE LAST BATTLE, for a much more indepth study of the inner workings of Hitler's Fuehrer bunker try reading THE BUNKER. This book has alot to offer especialy if you want to know how an entire country was lead down the path to genocide and destruction.

I very much enjoyed reading Armin Lehmann's autobiography, "Hitler's Last Courier." His book, I feel, has helped me understand how many young Germans came to admire and even worship Hitler and to dedicate their lives to his new Germany. Mr. Lehmann's book illustrates very well how German adolescents sublimated their enthusiasm into a fanatical heroism and blind obedience to a regime which demanded immense sacrifices, including that of their lives. Armin Lehmann also admirably describes how he slowly lost his illusions after his idol's unheroic suicide and his gradual discovery of the evil deeds of Hitler and his henchmen. Armin Lehmann involves us intimately in the terrifying inferno of the last days of the battle of Berlin, as seen through the eyes of a frightened 16 year old boy. His last hours in the Bunker's unreal world will fascinate historians of World War II. Such candid personal observations are rare as most occupants of the Bunker did not survive the war or chose to remain silent. Armin Lehmann's contribution is therefore invaluable and we are most grateful to him for sharing his memories with us.

Those of us who were growing up in the US during WWII were as oblivious to what the Germans were enduring on a day-to-day basis as the Germans were, to what Hitler was really doing to their Country and its culture. Lehmann presents a truly unique look at what "childhood" amounted to in the 30's and 40's. His penchant for detail puts the reader in the streets where Nazi atrocities co-existed with a young boy's naivete. You see, probably for the first time, the young son of an SS officer trying to make sense of human relations amidst irresistable propaganda - the dichotomy of leaders preaching a "Master Race," while so many of them are anything but the "Nordic Gods" they professed to be so superior (e.g. Hitler's black hair, Goebbels' club foot). This is a book that is hard to put down, and one that stays with you long after you do. If anything, it should come with a label warning that it is hazardous to evening and weekend projects. Mine had to wait until I was finished reading.