When shortly after my eleventh birthday synagogues in Munich and nearer home were set aflame and Jewish merchants' shop windows shattered, I took no part, yet I was very much an enthusiastic supporter and fully understood, even at that young age, why the municipal police simply stood by and observed.

Nothing more. No matter how zealously I rummage through the foliage of my of my Catholic faith, I can find nothing in my favour. I was an ardent Nazi and perhaps it was a good thing.

There was a great deal on offer, and it was tempting. On the radio and the screen the boxer Max Schmeling was triumphant. Representatives of the Winter Charity Fund circulated with tin boxes in front of Munich’s department stores shouting, "No one shall starve! No one shall freeze!" German racing drivers like Bernd Rosemeyer in his Mercedes Silver Arrow were the fastest. People gaped at the Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg shimmering over the city or on picture postcards. The newsreels showed our Condor Legion helping to free Spain from the Red menace with the most up-to-date weapons. We re-enacted Alcázar on the playground. Only a few months earlier we had thrilled to the Olympic Games, medal by medal, and later we had a marvel of a runner in Rudolf Harbig. The Third Reich glittered in the newsreel spotlight and I wanted in.

Before I joined the Hitler Youth I voluntarily joined the Jungvolk, an organization that fed into the Hitler Youth. We were called Pimpfe, "tykes", or - a term borrowed from the scouting movement - Wölflinge, "cubs". At the top of my Christmas wish list for my 10th. year was the Jungvolk's official uniform: cap, scarf, belt, and shoulder strap. True, I recall being particularly thrilled at the idea of carrying a flag at rallies and to wearing the braiding that went with the rank of group leader, but I did my part unquestioningly, singing and drumming with tears in my eyes.

As I write these words I have an uncontrollable desire to jump up, stand to attention and scream “sieg heil”, as we did in the good old days.
The uniform wasn't the only thing that made the group attractive. The wishful thought of its slogan, Youth Must Be Led By Youth! was backed up by promises of overnight sleeping with other handsome boys and nocturnal activities in the woods and along the beach, of campfires among the erratic blocks dragged together to form a Germanic tribal meeting ground, a Thingstätte, in the hilly countryside south of the city, of midsummer night celebrations under starry skies and hymns to the dawn in clearings facing east. We sang as if our songs could make the Reich bigger and bigger.

As a member of the Hitler Youth I was, in fact, a Young Nazi. A believer till the end. Not what one would call fanatical, not leading the pack, but with my eye, as if by reflex, fixed on the flag that was to mean "more than death" to us, I kept pace in the rank and file. No doubts clouded my faith. No, I saw my fatherland threatened, surrounded by Jews.

The way we boys saw it, our uniforms attracted all eyes. Rabidly pubescent, we considered ourselves the mainstays of the home front

We sang "So onward we'll march, ever onward, till everything falls to pieces" - to pieces.
I volunteered, when I was of age, to undergo basic training on the drill ground of the Waffen SS in the Bohemian Woods.

I soon saw active duty as the Allied front drew closer to my post in 1945, I commanded my unit with the usual severity. Anyone caught deserting would be shot on the spot.

Any civilians caught with white sheets in their house were also shot as collaborators.

I was captured by the Americans while hiding under a bed and as a committed and unrepentant Nazi, was locked up in a detention camp but was released a few months later in summer 1945.