1985908
9781592285785
During the last ten days of Hitler's Berlin, thirty thousand German teenagers perished defending their beloved Fuhrer in the Allied onslaught. Armin Lehmann was one of the few boy soldiers who escaped the bloodbath. Like every other member of the Hitler Youth, Lehmann would have gladly given his life for his leader. But he was not to be sacrificed to the enemy at the gate. Instead, he was chosen to serve in the German High Command's bunker complex. It was a stroke of fate that brought him into the company of the most notorious and bizarre Nazis of Hitler's hated Reich: Bormann, Himmler, GÖbbels, and, of course, the FÜhrer himself. When Hitler greeted Lehmann with a friendly tug on the cheek, the sixteen-year-old boy knew he had been granted a unique part in history. And as Germany braced itself for a bloody Gotterdammerung, a horrific drama of Wagnerian proportions unfolded before his young eyes. In Hitler's Bunker is a fascinating vision of the Nazi apocalypse that combines Lehmann's eyewitness account with what is known to have occurred. It is also the story of how his unquestioning fanaticism won him that role in the final act of the Third Reich. It takes us back to his boyhood and the brutal SA officer father who instilled the Nazi's hateful creed in his son, and follows Lehmann's odyssey through the ranks of the Hitler Youth, joining when he was only ten and winning two Iron Crosses for his bravery in battle. It is the story of how Lehmann gradually realized the full horror of his unquestioning participation, and his quest for the truth that took him in the footsteps of Mahatma Ghandi and to a meeting with Albert Schweitzer. Above all, In Hitler's Bunker is the story of how one man came to discover a past he had lived through but not seen, and how he came to deal with his regrets. Armin D. Lehmann, after his experiences in Hitler's Germany, was arrested by the U.S. military and underwent the "denazification" process. After a career in the travel industry, he moved to the United States and has become an outspoken pacifist and peacemaker. Tim Carroll is a British newspaper journalist and television producer. He is also the author of The Great Escapers and Woody's Women.Lehmann, Armin D. is the author of 'In Hitler's Bunker A Boy Soldier's Eyewitness Account of the Fuhrer's Last Days', published 2005 under ISBN 9781592285785 and ISBN 1592285783.
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