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Surviving 'Stunde Null': Narrating the Fate of Nazi Elite-School Pupils during the Collapse of the Third Reich


Type

Article

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Abstract

This paper considers the experiences of one particular, rarely discussed group of ‘war children’: former pupils of the most prominent type of Nazi elite school, the Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten or ‘Napolas’. Drawing upon a variety of original testimonies, the paper explores the hardships and dilemmas that Napola pupils (often as young as 12 or 13) faced as the Second World War drew to a close, and the ways in which ex-pupils have attempted to present this aspect of their past in autobiographical memoir literature and personal recollections. Public attitudes have certainly influenced these former pupils’ self-presentation, and their personal narratives of victimhood. However, their narrations also seem to contain recurring themes that are specific to their status as former elite-school pupils, and that have interesting implications for the ways in which we might approach such testimonies, both historically and methodologically.

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Keywords

Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt, 1945, oral history, Zeitzeugen, Napola, war children

Journal Title

German History

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0266-3554
1477-089X

Volume Title

33

Publisher

Oxford University Press (OUP)