We humble funposters work hard to earn our keep, and deserve much better than this demeaning title. We are merely tragically misunderstood bringers of mirth.
Just kidding, this is actually my thread on the book "Too Young to be a Hero" by Rick Holz. Like I said, I've been thinking about making a post about it. And here it is. It isn't quite Wehraboo, as it's written by someone who was actually in the Wehrmacht, but it has many trappings of such "thinking." For now I'm going to do the preface and chapter one. Depending on interest, I'll either continue my way through, or just take notes as I re-read it and do a bit of a full "book report" for you, depending on what is more convenient.
Without further aboo, here we go.
I had no say in it all.
These are seriously the opening words of the book. No joke.
I prefer to believe that I was a product of my parents' love
I admit that I used to be what one might call a perfect, two-legged, double-jointed, pig-headed example of a Heil Hitler-screaming German son of a bitch.
Well, okay. I'm cheating. I yanked something from further down the page and squished it up to the top. Although I find it interesting that he finds he has two legs to be noteworthy. I forget if he is referring to any future battlefield maiming that happens to occur.
I had aspirations of being... a hero like my father.
Mein opa-ing (well, mein vater-ing) isn't just for Redditors, folks!
On the very day I realized that I was fighting for my own life instead of dying in a blaze of glory for my beloved Vaterland, my Fatherland, I volunteered for immediate discharge from the army. I would have walked all the way on my homes, but they wouldn't accept my resignation.
Fun fact: This guy's career spans from like 1941 to the end of the war. So, guess his fate. He wants out so much. Does he escape, surrender, try to defect? To memory, he does try to make a run for it... right at the end of the war, when the outcome was just about assured. But sssh, no more spoilers. Unless if they're fun ones.
Caught together, hanged together. I didn't mind being caught so much. It was the hanging bit that didn't appeal to me.
Okay, one more. This guy spends most of his service on the Eastern Front. I wonder how many hangings of citizens partisans terrorists godless bloodthirsty red terrorists he saw? Hell, maybe he strung up a few himself.
I keep telling myself that I should have kept a diary, a kind of gloom-and-doom account.
This is a big part of what I meant by his account seeming, in layman's terms, heaps fucked. No idea when this was written, but it was first published in 2000. So it's written based off of his memories about 50 years on.
My story is not about the rise and fall of the Third Reich. My story is about me. I am neither famous nor infamous, neither a dazzling success nor a dismal failure. I am gentle and I am rough. I am cunning and I am gullible. I am some of the things one wants to be, and some of the things one abhors.
I am Darkwing Duck.
I am a plain and ordinary human being who was too young to be a hero.
I'm sorry, let's get that snippet from a bit ago again:
I admit that I used to be what one might call a perfect, two-legged, double-jointed, pig-headed example of a Heil Hitler-screaming German son of a bitch.
I am the shy, polite guy from next door, the quiet fellow who you can't quite figure out
N I C E G U Y S
I believe strongly that winners as well as losers are hapless victims.
Oh those poor Germans!
After some sappy stuff about how he's at peace and he prays to God for peace, peace peace, peace for his grandchildren and his children and all the people, peace for everyone and everything, that's the end of the intro.
I am still convinced that my mother picked the wrong time of the year to bring me into the world.
I'd say the wrong decade or even century sounds more accurate.
In summary, he spends the next few paragraphs describing how, surprisingly, he was born. Not dredged out of the Earth like some Uruk-Hai supersoldier by Saruman's minions. Fancy that. Oh, and his dad was a millionaire. Billions of marks per week. He was employed by the local gas company and made a fortune by reading the meters.
And that's the truth.
Oh and then the Great Depression roflpwns his daddy's riches. Whoops.
Then he talks a whole lot about how
By some inexplicable miracle
He becomes a Protestant.
Maybe I should have been born a Catholic, a Muslim, a Jew, or even Jehovah's Witness.
A Jew, or even Jehovah's Witness
Boy howdy that would've worked out well for him, huh?
Anyway, I'm getting far too ahead of myself
I agree.
Yadda yadda sister was a bitch, he played doctor with some blonde haired blue eyed waifu babe, etc. Might just skip ahead. In fact, I will. I cannot believe this nonsense about Germans having families or sexual encounters. They're produced in bulk in some munitions factory, I tell you.
Mutti and Papa took us to church again, so that I would emulate my peers and grow into a God-fearing, honest and decent German
Well fucking hell did that fail.
Skip, skip, skip. His dad dies.
I'd never again listen curiously to his fascinating stories about the Great War and the tales about the Kaiser's heroes who, just like my father, had fought many great and victorious battles in France and for his beloved Deutschland. Perhaps, quite innocently, he ignited the blazing torch of undying patriotism within my receptive mind.
Ah.
I hated my mother for taking me to the funeral. Funerals make death appallingly final. A little boy, six years of age, should not have to suffer the horror of parading past an open coffin.
And little boys shouldn't have to suffer the horror of their fathers, brothers, mothers and sisters being incinerated in their homes, lining mass graves, being hung, being gassed, being worked to death, so on and so forth. But hey, at least you tried to escape and have nothing more to do with it. When all of this stuff had already happened.
And that's chapter one. And here's the opening of chapter two.
Heil Hitler, Mutti! Heil Hitler, Lieselotte [His sister]! Heil Hitler, Deutschland! Sieg Heil, mein Fuhrer!
Well that escalated considerably.
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[–]MaxRavenclawIn reality, most tank battles took place at ranges over 2km! 5ポイント6ポイント7ポイント (2子コメント)
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[–]MaxRavenclawIn reality, most tank battles took place at ranges over 2km! 2ポイント3ポイント4ポイント (0子コメント)
[–]somenbjornHe rapes because he is the Victor 12ポイント13ポイント14ポイント (3子コメント)
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[–]aeromathOppressor of German minorities 2ポイント3ポイント4ポイント (0子コメント)
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[–]PassTheWhiskehYou edit this again to Tankie and see what happens 0ポイント1ポイント2ポイント (0子コメント)
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