A Nazi Childhood Chapter Summaries

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World War II was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It struck devastation and fear into the many lives of the people who fell victim to the Third German Reich. “A Nazi Childhood”, written by Winfried Weiss, is an autobiography about the author’s childhood. The author gives his recaptured perspective of Germany and the Third Reich. Born in Germany in 1937 Winfried Weiss was raised alongside his two sisters by his mother. His father was an SS officer who suddenly disappeared one night in Russia because of an ambush. Nazi Germany was as successful as it was as they were able to get people to conform to their beliefs because they played on citizens’ sense of nationalism and could indoctrinate the youth of Germany. …show more content…

They did this using several methods, first they convinced the people of Germany that their country was superior and incapable of doing any serious wrong or bad. The book shows how the German people felt about Germany, “When they handed some of us children copies of ‘Life Magazine’ with photos of our German concentration camps and told us to show them to our parents, I believed them true without the slighted hesitation, although the adults said it were all lies and propaganda”. (209) This shows how although Winfried Weiss believed the Americans, his mother did not. In addition, after World War I, Germany was very poor and weak. The Nazis then took advantage of this by playing on the citizens’ desire to be powerful again. “The symbol of the law gave his body shape; it lodged against his waist, pushing his chest outward, upward. The male only existed within a uniform, the natural male pigment; it encompassed his nature”. (70) Winfried Weiss had a powerful sense of admiration for his father. Winfried loved the thought of Germany being in power, and by looking at his father, he saw a living example of that. In conclusion, the Nazi party found one of their main sources of power by playing on the German people’s sense of

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