I Was There Author:Hans Peter Richter, Edite Kroll (Translator) Originally published in German under the title Wir Waren Dabei. — "I am reporting how I lived through that time and what I saw - no more. I was there. I was not merely an eyewitness. I believed - and I will never believe again. — Hitler comes to power in Germany. Children join the Hitler youth movement. the first-person narrator of this story... more » and his friends, Heinz and Güenther, all belong. The narrator and Heinz are enthusiastic, but Günther participates only because of pressures on him and his family.
Every German youth has a part in Hitler's Third Reich: soliciting money for the poor, collecting scrap iron, shouting frenzied "Heil Hitlers" when the Führer himself appears, tormenting Jews, taking premilitary training, and finally, ultimately, serving in the German armed forces. Heinz, Günther and the young narrator share many of the same experiences, but each responds to life under Nazism in a different way. this authoritative, understated, first-person account of the day-to-day events and attitudes of the Third Reich brings American young people into immediate contact with German youth of that period, a period that had a shattering effect on many people - and does to this day.« less