A Child of Hitler Alfons Heck Pdf
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
A child of hitler alfons heck pdf Continue Alphonse Heck (November 3, 1928-April 12, 2005) was a Hitler youth who eventually became Hitler's youth and a fanatical adherent of Nazism during the Third Reich. In the 1970s, decades after he immigrated to the United States through Canada, Heck began to write candidly about his young military experience in news articles and two books. He then partnered with Jewish Holocaust survivor Helen Waterford, each presenting his own different wartime circumstances to more than 200 classrooms, primarily in schools and colleges. Heck's life was born in Rhineland. He was raised by his grandparents on their farm at the crossroads of the country's wine community of Wittlich, Germany. When he entered school at the age of 6, he and his classmates were first subjected to effective Nazi ideology by their virulent-nationalist teacher. Four years later, Heck and his classmates joined five million of Hitler's youth. Hell was a good student and found learning easy. He was appointed leader of about ten other boys. By that time his indoctrination and his devotion to the proud future of Hitler's Third Reich were almost complete. He understands that the first rule of service to greater Germany is to follow orders without question, and he is prepared to report suspicious actions or comments, even by friends or family, to his leader. At the age of 14, all Germans Jungvolk had to join the older Hitler youth branch, Hitler Youth. Partly to not become an infantry officer, Heck turned to the elite Flying Hitler Youth (Flieger Hitlerjugend), though he feared his year-long glider training. But after a few weeks he became obsessed with flying and landing gliders. His life course has changed. He will not study to be a priest, as his grandmother had hoped. Heck dedicated himself to becoming a Luftwaffe fighter pilot. He was taught to believe that living in Bolshevik-Jewish slavery was too awful to contemplate, leaving German victory as the only alternative. The capture seemed worse than death. He thought that only a glorious death over the battlefield stood in the way of his exchange in the inevitable triumph of Germany. His eventual transformation into bigotry has begun. He described this long period of glider training from late 1942 to early 1944 as the happiest of his life. At the age of 16, Heck became the youngest scientist to receive an Aeronautics Certificate from Sailplane Flying. Heck recalls the typical audience response to Hitler's speech in his book Hitler's Child: Germany in the Days when God wore a swastika: We erupted into a frenzy of nationalist pride that borders on hysteria. For several minutes on end, we screamed at the top of our lungs, with tears streaming down our faces: Sig Heil, Sig Heil, Sieg Heil! of this moment I belonged to the body and soul of Adolf Hitler. [1] [1] was interrogated in the 1989 bbc documentary The Fatal Attraction of Adolf Hitler and commented on Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) in November 1938: Before Kristallnacht, many Germans believed Hitler was not involved in the massacre. The treatment of Jews appears to be a minor form of persecution of an unloved minority. But after Crystalnkht, no German could have any illusions. I believe that this was the day we lost our innocence. But it is fair to say that I myself have never met even the most fanatical Nazis who wanted to exterminate the Jews. Of course we wanted Jews from Germany, but we didn't want them killed. However, the Allied invasion of France in 1944 led to the fact that his group of 180 Flying Hitler's Youth, to whom Heck became a responsible officer, was returned to the Wittlich area to organize the excavation of large anti-tank barriers on the nearby defensive Westwall. Battlefield losses rose the range of Heck Hitler's youth to Bannf'hrer, nominally in charge of 3,000 Hitler youth workers in the town and its 50 surrounding villages. One of its anti-aircraft crews shot down a damaged B-17 bomber while trying to return to its base. He later ordered a military operation against the advancing Americans, in which participants on both sides were killed. Friends and superiors considered him ambitious and ruthless. At one point, he ordered the execution of an elderly Luxembourg priest if he dared to return to the school he had commanded his workers. The priest didn't come back. In another incident, he pulled out a gun to shoot a deserter of Hitler's youth, but a Wehrmacht sergeant prevented him from doing so. Heck admitted at the time, as well as afterwards, that he became intoxicated by the power he wielded. As the approaching Americans consolidated their gains, the 16-year-old Bannfuhrer was ordered to return to his Luftwaffe training base. Once there, with the suspension of training, candidates for flights were ordered to the front line to confront the U.S. infantry. However, a Luftwaffe officer, probably in order to save Heck's life, ordered Heck to search for the necessary radar equipment near Whittlich and then take a four-day vacation in his hometown. This allowed Heck to wear civilian clothes before surrendering to the advancing Americans. Unaware of his rank as Hitler's youth, American soldiers used Heck as an interpreter until the French military began to occupy the area. The French arrested Heck, who had served six months before finally being released. Heck was awarded the Iron Cross for his military efforts as a member of Hitler's youth. Hell, couldn't believe that the atrocities committed regime did take place. Despite the difficulties of traveling in occupied Germany, he made his way to Nuremberg to attest to what he had trials of former Nazi officers and officials. He later emigrated to Canada, working at several British Columbia sawmills. He then moved to the United States, where, while living in San Diego, he became a long-distance Greyhound bus driver. In the 1950s and 1960s, Alphonse Heck kept quiet about his military activities and involvement in Hitler's youth, but he read hundreds of books about the Third Reich, tracking the lives of surviving Nazi leaders and maintaining an interest in West German politics. He felt that his generation of young Germans was brutally betrayed by Nazi strategists. Of the nine and a half million people killed in the German war, two million were teenagers, both civilians and Hitler's youth. In 1971, at the age of 43, he became disabled due to heart disease. Without a productive future and increasingly frustrated by the inability of his contemporaries to speak, Heck began attending writing classes so he could write down what he wanted to be a pawn of Nazi militarism. Heck died of heart failure at the age of 76 on April 12, 2005. In 1985, he published a book, Hitler's Child: Germany in the Days when God Wore the Swastika (Arizona: Renaissance House, 1985), a story about his life under Nazism. He continued with the burden of Hitler's legacy (Frederick, Colorado: Renaissance House, 1988). Heck began touring with Jewish Holocaust survivor Helen Waterford in 1980 to talk about her experiences before, during and after the war. The speakers became friends, visiting more than 150 universities over nine years, urging young people to avoid brainwashing Hitler-type. Colorado publisher Eleanor Iyer, who published Waterford's 1987 autobiography, The Commitment to the Dead, wrote the intertwined stories of Waterford and Heck in her 1995 book Parallel Journeys. In 1989, Heck appeared in the BBC documentary The Deadly Attraction of Adolf Hitler. In 1991, he starred in the HBO documentary Heil Hitler Confessions Of A Hitler Youth. The film won ACE for best documentary. In 1992, Heck was awarded an Emmy Award for Outstanding Historical Programs. In 1991, a HBO documentary based on his books called Heil Hitler! Confessions of Hitler's youth were released. With Heck's narration and the use of archival footage, he tried to explain how millions of German youth of the Third Reich followed Nazi propaganda and became some of Hitler's most extreme followers. Heck also testified about the parallels between the pull of Nazism and Islamism and was featured in the documentary The Obsession: The War of Radical Islam Against the West. Inquiries - Alphonse Heck (1985). Child of Hitler: Germany in the days when God wore a swastika. page 23. ISBN 9780939650446. BBC documentary, The Fatal Attraction of Adolf Hitler (1989) - b Heck, 76; The leader of Hitler's youth later rejected Nazism and wrote about his experience. 2005 - Helen Helen Obituary. Los Angeles Times., May 8, 2017 - Two speakers present unique and opposing views on how Hitler fell victim to them. Oklahoman., access to May 8, 2017 External links Extracted from In this starkly frank account of the indoctrination of one boy in Hitler's youth, we see a side of Nazism that has been little recorded. This autobiographical story is a rare look at World War II from the perspective of a German boy. It's not a popularity contest,' Alphonse Heck said solemnly, introducing himself to an audience at Dean Junior College in Franklin, Massachusetts To my knowledge, I am the most senior Hilter Youth Leader living in the United States. The lecture hall was silent, though it was filled beyond the possibilities, mostly with students. He continued: There was a fatal connection between Hitler's youth (and Hitler). We were his elite. I'd love to die for him. Today, Heck, 56, is an American citizen living in San Diego who despises Hitler and the Nazis.