Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: one burns books, fanatical fighters, could not help but cry, Hitler Youth, Adolf Hitler, Nazi Party (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Grade 5-8–Hitler's plans for the future of Germany relied significantly on its young people, and this excellent history shows how he attempted to carry out his mission with the establishment of the Hitler Youth, or Hitlerjugend, in 1926. With a focus on the years between 1933 and the end of the war in 1945, Bartoletti explains the roles that millions of boys and girls unwittingly played in the horrors of the Third Reich. The book is structured around 12 young individuals and their experiences, which clearly demonstrate how they were victims of leaders who took advantage of their innocence and enthusiasm for evil means. Their stories evolve from patriotic devotion to Hitler and zeal to join, to doubt, confusion, and disillusion. (An epilogue adds a powerful what-became-of-them relevance.) The large period photographs are a primary component and they include Nazi propaganda showing happy and healthy teens as well as the reality of concentration camps and young people with large guns. The final chapter superbly summarizes the weighty significance of this part of the 20th century and challenges young readers to prevent history from repeating itself. Bartoletti lets many of the subjects' words, emotions, and deeds speak for themselves, bringing them together clearly to tell this story unlike anyone else has.–Andrew Medlar, Chicago Public Library, IL
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Gr. 7-10. What was it like to be a teenager in Germany under Hitler? Bartoletti draws on oral histories, diaries, letters, and her own extensive interviews with Holocaust survivors, Hitler Youth, resisters, and bystanders to tell the history from the viewpoints of people who were there. Most of the accounts and photos bring close the experiences of those who followed Hitler and fought for the Nazis, revealing why they joined, how Hitler used them, what it was like. Henry Mentelmann, for example, talks about Kristallnacht, when Hitler Youth and Storm Troopers wrecked Jewish homes and stores, and remembers thinking that the victims deserved what they got. The stirring photos tell more of the story. One particularly moving picture shows young Germans undergoing de-Nazification by watching images of people in the camps. The handsome book design, with black-and-white historical photos on every double-page spread, will draw in readers and help spark deep discussion, which will extend beyond the Holocaust curriculum. The extensive back matter is a part of the gripping narrative. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Scholastic Nonfiction (April 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0439353793
• ISBN-13: 978-0439353793
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 10 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #58,528 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life changing book that stays in your head for weeks, April 26, 2006

By	Sarah Stumpf (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The greatest strength of this book is laid out in the very first line, when author Susan Campbell Bartoletti says, "This is not a book about Adolf Hitler". Instead, she says in her introduction, it is a book about the young people "that followed Hitler", about the children who grew up in his zenith and who had to negotiate a childhood shaped by his life and death. The youth corps or simply Hitler Youth are examined in a clarifying detail that showcases their positive and attractive elements like camping and companionship as well as early troublesome activities like Nazi propaganda distribution and eventually munitions training. The book is exceptionally well rounded, including the voices of those children who couldn't join, opposed, or were excluded from the Hitler Youth in addition to its most vigorous supporters. The stories interweave and co-exist, giving the reader a sense of the broad responses to Hitler's regime and the various roles of young people in that regime.

Hitler Youth is outstandingly researched and makes excellent use of primary sources, such as photos, letters, diaries, books, and oral histories in attractive and informative ways without ever overwhelming the reader. She places everything in a context of German history post-World War I that allows the reader to understand the Hitler Youth as a product of particular historical circumstances and not just something that happened autonomously. Her use of German words gives the book cultural authenticity.

Another great success of the book is the way that it slowly ratchets up the tension and terror as it explores the issues of war, terrorism, resistance, and authoritarianism. Stories and persons from the early chapters constantly reappear, and the changes over time are not simply a matter of grandiose historical events, but the reader can see these changes in the lives of people that they have come to know. And some of these children that we have come to sympathize with are clearly not innocent. They become soldiers and killers, they betray their parents, and at the end of the book, are complicated and traumatized individuals who must cope with the truth of Hitler's Final Solution, and their complicit or explicit role in it.

But Bartoletti is not content to simply tell us a story about the past; she also calls into question its implications for the future. Her final sentence of the book calls upon children and adults to ask themselves "What are you willing to do?" and that message resonates with the reader long after the book itself has been closed.

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Different Point of View, October 3, 2005

By	Tamela Mccann "taminator1" (Nashville, TN USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

So many books have been written about the Holocaust and World War 2, and most of them have been either from the Jewish point of view or the Allied point of view. This one tackles the same subjects through the difficult eyes of those people who, as children, were inducted into the Hitler Youth. This book is very frank about the jubilation these youngsters felt as they beheld Hitler and his vision for Germany and how they were indoctrinated in the propaganda. It's very scary thinking of how Hitler targeted the young and innocent as vehicles for his schemes and how successful he was doing this. The author takes interviews and writings and shows clearly how the individuals were taken in by this machine; the youth themselves, now elderly, don't excuse themselves but do tell the tale so that it is easy to see how they became so enamored. This book should be required reading for those young adults studying World War 2 because it's important to remember that there were two sides to the story and how innocent youngsters were willing victims. Highly recommended.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Different view of the Third Reich, May 19, 2006

By	What about the Truth? "d" (Ohio) - See all my reviews

I borrowed this book from the library and read it in TWO days! Not that I am a wonderful reader, but it truly is a gripping and fascinating book. I could not put it down.

I am familiar with the events leading to WWII, the purpose of the deadly and unforgettable Holocaust, and a lot of the propaganda of the socialistic movement. I was not, however, familiar with the youth that Hitler motivated to do most of the work behind the war and the holocaust. It is a part of history that I never knew and was amazed to find out,

This book is very well documented with excerpts from diaries and touching photos of a handful of youth that belonged to Hitler's regime, the jews, and some who's scales fell from their eyes and escaped the yoke of Nazi brain washing. The pictures are clean as far as not seeing some of the more atrocious pictures that you would probably see at the Holocaust museum. Like I said, the focus of this book is more on the youth of Hitler, and not of the war or the holocaust itself.

There is absolutely no one-sided persuasion in this book. You do not get the feeling of hatred toward the German youth, you honestly feel sorry for these children. Almost to the point of understanding why they did some of the things that they did. But still one must ask why they still did it.

This book may be a little harder to read for a child. Perhaps, it is more high school level. It definately deserves a place in your history section of your own personal library.