Customer Reviews

Too Young to Be a Hero

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This is the touching true story of a young man in Germany whose father dies when he is young. As Hitler comes to power, the boy looks to Hitler as a substitute father figure and, with the outbreak of war, rushes off to join the German Army.

However, once he reaches the Eastern Front and sees the true tragedy of war as well as the compassion of the people he is fighting, his attitude towards Nazisim begins to change. Gone is the boy that looks up to Hitler as a father - instead he begins to see the madman that has Germany in his grasp.

As well as the trials of war, this story looks at the bizarre relationship between the boy and his mother. Forced to live in the hallway instead of a bedroom, the boy is blamed for his father's untimely death by his mother, and is constantly physically and emotionally abused. Suprisingly the boy manages to form a "normal" relationship with a young girl in his neighbourhood, but this to leads to tragedy.

A fantastic book, it is impossible to put down. Although the story is incredibly sad and depressing at times, it does highlight how peoples' attitudes can change from one extreme to the other - and provides a real insight to the impact of the Nazi regime on peoples' day to day lives.

This is a remarkable book by a gifted writer. It is a simple story. The author, Rick Holz, provides a true account of his upbringing in Nazi Germany. Like many of his age, Holz (or Ollie Weiss as he calls himself in the story) was hypnotised by Hitler's grand visions of national salvation and a Thousand Year Reich. Itching to join the army, he finally makes it. There he is on the front cover of the Flamingo edition of his book, a bespectacled youth in Wehrmact uniform, barely out of school.

Holz's journey begins in historic Prenzlau, north east of Berlin near the Polish border. This is Holz's hometown, were he joins the Hitler Youth and experiences love and sex for the first time. And with Hitler his god, his father his hero, Prenzlau is where our Teutonic warrior finally goose-steps off to do battle against the Slavic hordes to the east.

But instead of hero stuff, slaying dragons, wining medals and the like, Ollie finds himself scared, very scared, in some godforsaken, lice ridden, frigid foxhole near Stalingrad. The story moves back and forth between the front line and stints in field hospitals, home-leave, and some service in France.

But it is Russia that leaves its mark.

Almost inevitably, disillusionment sets in along with the Russian winter, and Private Weiss questions his devotion to Mein Fuhrer and to a war without purpose, nor without end. How Ollie (Holz) resolves this patriot-turned-misfit dilemma provides the climax to the story in which he becomes an implacable pacifist.

Using carefully chosen and provocative phrasing, Holz threads his pacifist theme through plenty of memorable loops. There is pathos, and plenty of it. But there is also humour. With prose that reminds of McCourt's Angela's Ashes, Holz describes how he seeks to relieve the burdens of rampaging adolescent hormones under an old oak tree with a saucy young thing called Brigitte. Then, serving in France, soldier Weiss meets Yvette, "an impossible dream come true....She had almond-shaped eyes, full sensuous lips and a million tantalising flavours all blended together with perfection". Well, our lonely soldat certainly gets to taste the flavours. We would like to tell you more but that would spoil the story of a delicate coupling....

Women play a curious role in the Holz saga and a feminist critique would have much to ponder. Little Ollie's relationship with his mother is a good example. While father plays the hero, mother is the witch - the wicked witch of Prenslau; the woman who physically and mentally abuses her son, extinguishing any uprising of her son's self-esteem with a well-aimed barb or a well-timed slap.

And then there is Helga. She is Holz's girl friend, an angelic, piece of vanilla slice, devoted to Holz. She is Holz's one true love, his sweetheart, his golden platted germanic princess tending his flame while her prince does battle in distant lands. They pledge themselves to one another now and forever. So much for the fairytale. At sixteen, Helga was also carrying Holz's baby. In the suffocating religious prism of small town Prenslau, single-mum-to-be Helga and her mother are forced out of Prenslau and, for the time being, from Holz's story. On leave, our Knight comes looking, arrives at her house, and knocks on the front door. But she is not to be found. "Helga, Helga, where art thou Helga?" Will she return?

With the Western world debating the need for war in Iraq, Holz's memoir is a timely reminder of what is at risk. Leaders can argue for grand causes and abstract dreams. But ultimately the spear-carriers are ordinary people, you and me, motivated by the search for happiness, the absence of want, the love of family, friend, and home. The Holz story would be good medicine for that awful affliction called war fever.

If we think of Iraq, and we think of war, we should also think of the soldier Weiss. We should especially remember his vivid description of the results of an allied bombing raid on the German city Stuttgart. It could have been Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden, or London. It doesn't matter where, the results are the same. Innocent people - men, women, and children - pulverised by falling debri are images Holz has never forgotten, and neither should we.

Holz makes words glisten and this is one of those books that you can't put down. You will want to laugh and cry at the same time. Holz settled in Australia following his war years. Had he went to the U.S. instead and produced a book of this kind, Spielberg or someone of his ilk would have bought the rights to the story, and Rick Holz would be a household name. Hoffman the way he looked in Papillon would make a good Ollie Weiss, bifocals and all!

Holz is to be admired for his tremendous candour and integrity in telling his story. Much of it he might have preferred to keep hidden below the carpets. But he has had to confront his daemons, and confront them he has. This is a story that demands a wide audience. It deserves to be heard.

In this reviewers opinion, best book ever!

to some it may sound stupid but i loved the book and couldent put it down it was simply awsome.

a riviting story as described below.

you will laugh cry and exhale a sigh of relief while reading this fantastic book!!!!

rick holz has done a great job of writing it and i must say that even though there was no historical evidance its a memiour.

if your into ww2 or just want a good read for anywhare anyplace anytime this is the book for you!!!!

its a must read and a fantastic one at that.

Do yourself a favor get it read it and enjoy!

Mr Holz was born in Germany and is pictured in a German military uniform, of this there is no doubt, unfortunately, that is about all we can confirm about Mr Holz wartime memoir. There are several historical impossibilities in this book. Mr Holz witnessed a successfull counterattack by Tiger Tanks against the Russians on the Eastern Front prior to his service at Stalingrad, unfortunately the Tiger Tank was not successfully deployed until early 1943, after the fall of Stalingrad. His near execution and eyewitnessing of a massacre of SS guards by American soldiers liberating Dachau Concentration Camp is harrowing. It is a pity it is at odds with all of the photographic and historical information published of the event.

Unfortunately Mr Holz has forgotten to provide basic information such as his service number, unit name and number, commanding officers, army names or other information that would pin him to a time and place so long ago. Until he can provide this information and corrects the historical impossibilities of his book, his memoirs should be treated with a pinch of salt.

I believe Mr Holz has written a clever war story for our times, where we want it both ways. The voyeuristic thrill of war and killing that excites the reader is then comfortably balanced by rejection of the values of the state one is fighting for. I know it is comforting to blame the Generals and our leaders for wars folly, but never forget war is a team effort, a team of which we are all part. It is the average soldier, after his lady has proudly brushed his uniform, that goes forth to kill.

Gerard Dean