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The Children of Nazi Germany...

An excellent and probing treatment of the children of the Nazi leaders.

These are the children of Bormann, Hess, Goring - who met the Furhrer, received small gifts from him and may have sat on his lap. He was god-father to some of them.
The damage done (or the psychological baggage) to these individuals – now adults approaching old age – falls into two categories (I am simplifying). As the author says (and which annoyed him in the conversations); a tremendous wall was put up between ‘father-family’ and ‘father – politician – war criminal’. In one category there was no room for discussion of the latter subject area. As for the other group, both categories were breached (like Niklas Frank and Martin Bormann) and the abyss was approached.

All of this makes for a very interesting read and gives insights into the Nazi era. Although Klaus Von Shirach falls into the ‘wall’ category he does make an astute observation when he equates National Socialism with religion. One could add with Adolf Hitler as the Messiah.

The book also makes revelations on how Germany is coping with its’ inglorious past. The author makes an analogy that Germany is treating the Nazi criminals as a visit to the zoo – stare at the animals and quickly move on - without much reflection on how the animals behaved before they were caged.

A few extra notes:
1) This book is very good journalism and is the combination of father and son. The father (Norbert Lebert) made interviews in the mid-fifties with the sons and daughters of the Nazi leaders. His son, Stephan, followed the trail in the 1990’s. As Stephan acknowledges in the book - this is grueling – excavating the Nazi cult is not life-affirming.
2) The son of Martin Bormann , of the same name, found salvation in religion and converted to Catholicism. He wrote an auto-biography ‘Living Against the Shadow’ which appears to be unavailable in the English language.
3) It would be interesting to find a book on the less visible – but equally guilty perpetrators of crimes at the camps. Men (and women) who dealt daily with crimes against humanity still walk freely in the streets as alluded to a few times in the book.
4) Although Hess was regarded as a ‘fruit-cake’ by the Nuremburg tribunal – the correspondence he had with his children through-out his long internment was very lucid and rational.
5) If you suffer psychological distress due to parental issues this may not be the book for you.