War of My Fathers: Life Under the Death's Head

This deeply personal history traces the experiences of two men who fought for the German Army on the Eastern Front during World War II—one a devoted young paratrooper, the other a former political prisoner coerced into service. The author’s grandfather, Narziß, staunchly opposed the Nazi regime. He may have started out life as a Bavarian farmer’s son on a modest farm that barely yielded enough food to feed the family, but his union and Social Democratic Party membership put him on the Nazis’ radar. And he paid dearly for it. Arrested by the Gestapo, Narziß spent over a year in prison where they failed to beat the secrets out of him. Then, with a cruel irony, the same regime that had imprisoned him would later send him to fight for it, in a war he had long rejected. Narziß served for six years and was robbed of over a decade of his life. Conversely, the author’s father, Walter, came of age under Hitler. When he was required to join the Hitler Youth at the age of 10, he was excited. He earned the Hitler Youth Proficiency Badge. He had proved his commitment to the regime. To no surprise, Walter ended up joining the Paratroop Panzer Division Hermann Göring. And as a young paratrooper, he fought with conviction, even as the Reich crumbled around him. The war itself may have been lost, but the war machine had worked on Walter. Decades of counter-indoctrination were to come. War of My Fathers tells the extraordinary true story of two men—the author’s father and grandfather—who fought on the Eastern Front during World War II, one under compulsion, the other by conviction. Their parallel yet opposing paths offer a rare and deeply personal lens on the war’s human cost, the power of ideology, and the brutal reality of total war.