Letters About Literature Contest

Dear Susan Bartoletti,

            I suppose I’ve always had an interest in Nazi Germany. The first two things that anyone tends to learn about World War II and the Nazis are that they were led by Hitler and this horrible thing called the Holocaust happened. The more I grew physically and intellectually, and as I learned more about World War II, it became obvious that while Hitler and his Nazi party were obviously the bad guy, that not every citizen of Germany believed that the whole Jewish population should be wiped off the face of the Earth. Those caught up in extreme patriotism would go along with anything that Hitler said, but others could still see through it.

            Whether or not a person was willing to do anything was another matter. Even if you downright hated the Nazi party, what are you going to do about it? The Gestapo were very thorough and you never knew who you could trust. Even the notion of actually fighting against the Nazi party took a lot of guts. I feel like part of Helmuth’s ability to actually do something was do to his youth and anger. It was also definitely due to finding out the truth. With all the lies that the Nazis had been spreading with their massive propaganda, everything changed when listening to the British. The more and more Helmuth listened to the radio, the angrier he got, and the more he wished to do something about it. Unfortunately, he became less and less cautious, which in the end went too far, and he ended up making the mistake that would end in his death.

            Abandoning all the silly mistakes he made, and the rashness of his actions near the end, Helmuth was extraordinarily brave. Nazi Germany was not a place where opposition to the party was allowed. Your freedom of speech and press was gone, and the consequences for saying what you truly thought could put you on death row, even if you were a minor like Helmuth. Absolutely everything about the society made it dangerous to do anything but work quietly and act as if you love Hitler and the Fatherland. The amazing thing about people like Helmuth is that they don’t seem to care. It’s obvious that doing something like making pamphlets against the Nazi party would put you in major trouble, but Helmuth knows of something more important. He knows that he has to do something. He can not just sit around while all this chaos happens around him. That is what is respectable about Helmuth. He refuses to back down and comply with the desires of a society that he knows is wrong.

            In my opinion, he should’ve simply kept it down to him, Rudi, and Karl. That was his mistake when he tried to include too many people. It was definitely true that you didn’t know who to trust in Germany. People were rewarded when they turned in “criminals.” They had done their job as a citizen of Germany and proved themselves to be a “good Nazi.” Still, while I was irritated with how Helmuth handled the situation at the end, I still found him to be a main character worth looking up to. He was a boy who had a strong desire to find the truth beneath the lies that his country was feeding. He had the courage to stand up for what was right and didn’t back down to the massive power of the Nazis. Finally, this book showed true friendship. Due to torture, Helmuth eventually had to tell the names of his friends, but that didn’t stop him from doing everything he possibly could to get them out of it. He purposefully made himself the obvious mastermind and said anti-Nazi feelings in court to stir them up. Those three characteristics of Helmuth make him extremely respectable. This book was a really good example of one of the few Germans who dared. Thank you for writing this novel and showing the world a different side of the Germans during World War II. It gives a very interesting and new perspective to the diversity people and how they act in such a society.