Hard Times

My Youth under National Socialism (and Beyond) 1935-1947

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My Youth under National Socialism (and Beyond) 1935-?1947
G. H. Hertling is Professor emeritus in Germanics at the University
of Washington in Seattle. Born 1930 in Pasadena, California of
German parents, their last und final visit back to Germany from
California proved fatal. Young American Hertling and his German
mother could not return, whereas his father succeeded in repatriating
to California alone. Caught in Hitler’s ‚Grand German Empire of a
Thousand Years‘ initially in airraid-?riddled Hamburg and later in
bombed-?out Munich, he attended a private, then ’state administered‘
highschool in Bavaria. Torn between identifying with National
Socialism on the one hand as a member of the Hitler Youth and yet
as a German-American with liberal-?democratic ideals on the other,
Hertling here vividly recalls the turbulent ‚hard times‘ during World
War II: He fully remembers, reminisces and relates to large portions
of those historical and personal events that have affected his formative
years psychologically and emotionally. His central narrative is
pictorally enriched by two subtexts – by a series of historical as well
as by some personal images.
The author served the University of Washington forty-?four years,
retiring in 2004. He had joined the faculty in 1961 upon completing
his graduate studies in Germanics (and History) at the University of
California, Berkeley. His areas of specialization continue to be modern
German literature and thought of the 18th and 19th centuries
(particularly Enlightenment, Sturm und Drang, Poetic Realism).