With these conditions, nothing is to the point but care and extreme reticence. Families guard this reticence, and live side by side like strangers, or enemies.
One boy of seventeen, an aristocrat, and delicate, wants to study philosophy, in spite of the times. He is slender and well-built, and most of his racial heritage is rated excellent. He has never been brilliant in sports, but, helped by his name and his determination, he may enter Hitler’s personal bodyguard ( Leibstandarte ), and he pushes towards this end passionately. He is looking worse all the time, paler and more desperate, and his foreign friends insist on getting to the bottom of it. They tell him not to lose courage; he’ll surely be admitted, all will end well. But he shakes his head: “That’s just it!” he answers. “Of course, they’ll admit me; and that will be the end of everything.”
But is he fighting so passionately for something he hates? The boy makes them swear not to tell a soul — not even his own family — and then breaks down. He tells them that his father is so terribly anti-Nazi, he loathes it all; besides being careless, he is rebellious; and for years, he has refused to join the Party. The son knows his father’s danger. “They’ll just take him away some day,” he says. “A nobleman who won’t play their game! That’s serious…. They’re after him.”
His friends begin to see the picture he is chalking in for them. “Something has to be done,” the boy continues. “We have to show them we’re good Nazis, not just arrogant aristocrats. I hate them, God knows. But I’ll join the Leibstandarte; I will not see my father endangered.”
When they meet his father a little later, he tells them: “My own son, insisting on joining the guard — horrible, isn’t it? He knows how I hate the whole business. But, if he insists, I shan’t do anything to stop him. After all, he might end by denouncing me.”
The members of a family are alone, living side by side, like strangers, or enemies.
Does the German child suffer under these conditions?
Is he subjectively unhappy?
Is he aware of loss? Does he realize his situation?
Human beings — the Germans proved this during the war — can become accustomed to almost anything if they are led to believe its necessity. And children seem to be adjusting to altered conditions, accepting their novelty without criticism. They have not been given time to come to their senses; they accept Nazi life almost unconsciously.