I Deserted Hitler: Memoirs of Bruno J. Trappmann

This is the moving story of Bruno Trappmann told by his partner, Nancy Inglis. The story opens with touching descriptions of the simplicity of a young's boy life growing up in Hitler's 3rd Reich where at every step of his young life he is in conflict with Nazi ideology and values to which he cannot conform. The Boy Scouts to which he belonged and loved was converted to the Hitler Youth Movement and the boys were taught anti-semitic songs. There is a sense of foreboding as the chilling descriptions of the slow loss of freedom and the persecution of Jews envelops society. The story moves across his time in the German army at 21 years of age, his desertion, life under the Russians and his final days living with his beloved Nancy in Australia.