Here, Schumann (German Literature and Language/Smith College) presents an absorbing and thoughtful recollection of—and attempt to understand—his childhood and adolescence in Nazi Germany. The author, son of a pilot on the nearby Kiel Canal, gives a warts-and-all portrait of average, decent people. Worn down by defeat and unemployment, his family and their friends, though skeptical of the Nazis' ideological claims, welcomed not only the stability and prosperity they initially provided but also the restoration of German pride. But it was all, Schumann has concluded, a massive brainwashing exercise—in particular of the young, who were organized from the age of ten into paramilitary groups in which their natural inclination for adventure and heroism was deliberately manipulated. Living in a small northern town where there was only one Jewish family, Schumann was, he says, unaware of the camps until the war was over, and he suggests that most Germans never took the Nazi racial policies seriously. Born in 1927, the author was old enough to join the German Army in 1944 but—like many of his peers—put off enlisting, unable to believe that the war in Europe was ending; long subjected to strict military discipline, they could not conceive of a defeated army. The propaganda of Goebbels, Schumann notes, was effective right up to the end, when the Nazi minister held out the promise of new weapons that would provide final victory. ``It was simply not possible for us to believe the war was lost,'' Schumann reports. ``We were psychologically not capable of accepting the reality that the nearly five-year-long gigantic efforts of the German people had been in vain.'' Merely serviceable prose, but what comes shining through here are both the author's integrity and his determination to describe just what it was like to grow up in a society in which ordinary life was increasingly sacrificed to the needs of a relentless ideology. (Twenty-two illustrations—not seen.)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-87338-447-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1991
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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