Almost a Childhood : Growing Up Among the Nazis

Hans-Georg Behr experienced a remarkable childhood in wartime Austria.

His liberal, artistic grandparents belonged to the aristocracy; his cold-hearted mother was a celebrated opera singer; and his distant father a prominent industrialist.

His parents were also rabid Nazis, and the high office his father held in the Ministry of Aviation brought the young Hans-Georg into contact with 'Uncle Josef' (Goebbels), 'Uncle Hermann' (Goring), and 'Uncle Adolf' himself.

As the war advances, their world begins to collapse, though the writer has only a child's grasp of the reasons why: his older half-brother confronts Russian soldiers with his air-rifle and Hitler Youth uniform and is killed.

His half-sister swallows cyanide. Later his grandparents' estate is wrecked by the advancing Russians, while his mother, no longer able to perform, ends up serving in a bar, where her son collects the glasses.

The book was hailed as a literary triumph when it appeared in Germany for the way in which Behr recaptures the freshness of his own childhood perceptions and its flashes of darkly ironic humour.