Hilter's Youth Growing up in Hitler's Shadow

Bartoletti, Susan Campbell. Hitler Youth Growing up in Hitler’s Shadow. New York: Scholastic Inc, 2005.

Annotation: “I begin with the young. We older ones are used up…But my magnificent youngsters! Look at these men and boys! What material! With them, I can create a new world.” Adolf Hitler.
This was the beginning of a world changing event. Hitler built an army on the shoulders of average children and teenagers to carry out his mass murder of the Jewish people and many other groups deemed impure.

Justification for Nomination: Hitler preyed upon the vulnerability of Germany’s youth. His message of contributing to the well being of the people resonated with the youth, who grew up with World War One, poverty, and unemployment. They believed that Hitler could get them out of the mess they were in as a country. With Hitler in power, the Nazi’s took over the schools, rewrote all textbooks to promote the national party and added two new subjects. Racial Science taught that Aryans belonged to a superior master race that was intended to rule Europe. Eugenics taught that Aryans should only marry healthy Aryans and how to identify Jews by learning their physical traits. This class taught that Jews were “inferior” and were the cause of all of Germany’s misfortunes. Bartoletti begins the book with a neutral presentation of a dozen young Germans. Part of the allure for teen readers is the pictures that accompany the text. She uses black and white photography and thumbnail biographies to introduce the twelve people. These are the real characters she will follow throughout the war. The extraordinary photographs are vivid and candid. When placed with the text, they become chilling reminders of what brain washing looks like. I think this literary technique will draw in her intended audience and help spark deep discussion. A significant part of the text is told in the words of the focused on twelve, but she also offers details to help the reader understand how this could ever happen. Bartoletti lets many of the subjects' words, emotions, and deeds speak for themselves, offering realism and candor to the plot. The author researched this topic for two years and provided details of how the Hitler Youth became the back bone of the German army in a cool neutral tone to demonstarte the horror of the war in an unbiased manner. Through the use of interviewing, emails, phone calls, letters, research, visiting national and historic museums, traveling to the places in Germany mentioned in the book, reflection, and writing the author compiled a mass of historical and truthful information and attempted to make sense of a senseless period. She presented it in an easy to read engaging narrative that brought authenticity to the subject. She frequently quoted survivors, used dialogue from diaries, listened to personal accounts which can stimulate critical thinking skills in any reader. By using these tools, she was able to add “flesh & blood” to the facts and figures of World War One. The organization and lay out of the text was a mix of words, quotes, photographs, maps which provides visual stimulation so important to the YA reader. She also provides a glossary and index which is helpful when confronted with a word that may seem challenging to a new reader. The authenticity is further upheld by the Quote Source in the back of the book. The author also included a photography section that helped to explain where the pictures came from, whether from the National Archives, National Holocaust Museum, Soldiers pictures, or from Hitler’s personal photographer. She poured through millions of pictures before selecting the ones chosen for the book. Adding further to the authenticity, she provides websites where the reader can go to view more pictures. This will appeal to the technology driven YA, sparking imagination and indulging curiosity. This book gives the reader a chance to not only learn history through the eyes of a person the same age as the reader, but to also experience the horror of what war is really like. The author shows respect for the reader throughout the book by making the material easily understandable, intermediate pacing, factual tone, but also challenging the reader to think about what it must have been like to be a teen under Hitler’s control. She includes the message of hope by writing about the Hitler Youth that quit and began an underground anti-Nazi campaign to inform the German people about what was really happening to the Jewish people. This would be a great book to accompany a history lesson on WWl in any history class.
Genre: Historical Non-Fiction