Children of Nazis, Tania Crasnianski
Children of Nazis, Tania Crasnianski
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Children of Nazis
The Sons and Daughters of Himmler, Göring, Höss, Mengele, and Others-Living with a Father’s Monstrous Legacy

Author: Tania Crasnianski, Molly Grogan

Narrator: Christa Lewis

Unabridged: 7 hr 8 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 10/20/2020


Synopsis

In 1940, the German sons and daughters of infamous Nazi dignitaries Himmler, Göring, Hess, Frank, Bormann, Speer, and Mengele were children of privilege at four, five, or ten years old, surrounded by affectionate, all-powerful parents. Although innocent and unaware of what was happening at the time, they eventually discovered the extent of their fathers' occupations:

These men—who were capable of loving their children and receiving love in return—were leaders of the Third Reich, and would later be convicted as monstrous war criminals. For these children, the German defeat was an earth-shattering source of family rupture, the end of opulence, and the jarring discovery of Hitler's atrocities.

How did the offspring of these leaders deal with the aftermath of the war and the skeletons that would haunt them forever? Some chose to disown their past. Others did not. Some condemned their fathers; others worshiped them unconditionally to the end. In this enlightening book, Tania Crasnianski examines the responsibility of eight descendants of Nazi notables, caught somewhere between stigmatization, worship, and amnesia. By tracing the unique experiences of these children, she probes at the relationship between them and their fathers and examines the idea of how responsibility for the fault is continually borne by the descendants.

About Tania Crasnianski

Tania Crasnianski was born in France to a German mother and French-Russian father. Children of Nazis is her first book. She is a criminal lawyer and lives in Germany, London, and New York.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Erin on April 16, 2024

I've been fascinated by the second world war since I learned about it in eighth grade. My fascination centered around the Holocaust, the attempt to exterminate the Jews. It seemed so clear who the good people and the bad people were. The Germans, Italians, and Japanese were bad; the Americans, Briti......more

Goodreads review by Maria on April 13, 2017

Crasnianski leva-nos a conhecer apenas um filho de cada nazi, embora estes tivessem tido bem mais do que um filho único, já que uma das políticas do III Reich é que estes tivessem uma prole numerosa. O filho retratado é quase sempre o primogénito, relegando para segundo ou até ignorando os outros fi......more

I went into reading his book with some trepidation. I was a bit scared of what was going to be the various children' stories, as well as a fear the children would either be whitewashed or painted black. I was joyfully impressed by how evenhanded and well researched the book was. She didn't back off......more

Goodreads review by Simon on November 19, 2020

The topic is interesting, although the children of the top leadership are getting thin on the ground. Still, the book is rather light. Save for Albert Speer, Jr. (also an architect) Crasnianski doesn't seem to have actually interviewed any of them. The most interesting are Edda Goering and Gudrun Hi......more

Goodreads review by Caroline on January 05, 2019

Limited in scoop and not a great deal of depth to it. Focuses on the lives of some of the children of senior Nazis (Mengele's son, Hess' son, Goring's daughter etc), but it's all based on second-hand material and doesn't spend a great deal of time on any of them. Very little attempt at any kind of r......more