Hitlers Boy Soldiers, Helene Munson
Hitlers Boy Soldiers, Helene Munson
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Hitler's Boy Soldiers
How My Father's Generation Was Trained to Kill and Sent to Die for Germany

Author: Helene Munson

Narrator: Caitlin Cavannaugh

Unabridged: 8 hr 56 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/24/2022

Synopsis

Helene Munson resurrects her father’s WWII journals and embarks on a meticulous investigation, exposing how the Nazis trained 300,000 impressionable children as soldiers. In 1937, Munson’s father, Hans, was enrolled in an elite German school whose students were destined to take leadership roles in the Reich. At fifteen, he was drafted as an antiaircraft gunner—along with the rest of the Hitler Youth—and assigned to an SS unit. As the war was being lost, Hans and his schoolmates were ordered to the front lines. Few returned. A personal lens into a nation’s shameful past, Hitler’s Boy Soldiers documents the history of the largest army of child soldiers in recent memory. Munson explores the lifelong effects on brainwashed children coerced to join a party they didn’t understand. Both a modern narrative and an important historical contribution, Hitler’s Boy Soldiers grapples with inherited trauma, the nature of being victim or perpetrator, and the burden of guilt.

About Helene Munson

Helene Munson grew up in Brazil, Liberia, and Germany, spending most of her adult life in New York and Berlin. She writes short stories in English and German, which have been published in magazines and anthologies. Inspired by her family history, she studied the impact of armed conflicts on children for her master’s degree. She lives outside New York City.

About Caitlin Cavannaugh

Caitlin Cavannaugh is a talented voiceover artist, actor, singer, harpist, and accordionist. She is a company member of the Purple Rose Theatre Company and received her bachelor's degree in acting from Northern Illinois University and a Certificate of Acting from the Moscow Art Theatre School in Russia.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Matal “The Mischling Princess” on February 06, 2022

I would like to thank The Experiment and Workman Publishing for an eARC of this book. Prior to changing my undergraduate major to anthropology, I was a double major in both German language education and historical preservation. There is no doubt in my mind that had I continued on with my previous pla......more

Goodreads review by SundayAtDusk on March 19, 2022

I swore I’d never read another book about Nazis. I never would give them any additional reading time. Yet when I saw this book, I requested an ARC, and I’m not sure why. Maybe because it was dealing with children who were sent off to fight in a lost war. How pathetic is that? Some were as young as 1......more

Goodreads review by Amys on May 24, 2022

Unimaginable What a superbly written title in Hitler’s Boy Soldiers: How My Father’s Generation Was Trained to Kill and Sent to Die for Germany by Helene Munson. I just became fan of this author! Whatever this author writes, I read. I haven't read work from this author before, and I more than enjoyed......more

Goodreads review by Mary on July 12, 2021

I had a chance to read a pre-publication copy: This book is a must-read for the now-adult children of Hitler's other victims, who struggle with a shameful legacy due to 'Transgenerational Trauma.' World War II scholars and historians may also increase their understanding of the plight of these previ......more

Goodreads review by MTillman on April 11, 2022

This extraordinary story brings a new angle to Nazi history and WWII seen from the perspective of a boy who is sent from South America to Germany to attend a Nazi elite school. His daughter uses his previously unpublished diaries from school and later on as a juvenile soldier to tell this story. She......more

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