A Hitler Youth by Henry Metelmann

A Hitler Youth (Spellmount Edition of a Hitler Youth Memoir in Dust Jacket)

A Hamburg Railwayman's Son Recalls Growing Up in Nazi Germany and Joining the Hitler Youth

Bibliographic Specifications

• Title: A Hitler Youth: Growing up in Germany in the 1930s
• Author: Henry Metelmann
• Publisher: Spellmount, Staplehurst
• Publication Date: 2004
• ISBN-10: 1862272522
• Edition Details: This edition first published in the UK in 2004 by Spellmount (first published 1997 by Caliban Books). Printing line reads 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2.
• Binding: Publisher's dark grey cloth boards with a printed dust jacket.
• Physical Format: Medium-sized hardcover, approximately octavo (8vo).
• Language: English

Official Condition Report

• The Book: Very Good Plus (VG+)
• Exterior / Boards: The dark grey cloth boards beneath the jacket are clean, with sharp corners and no visible marks. The spine is clean.
• Interior: The text block appears tight and well bound. The pages are clean and cream, with no foxing or markings. The title and copyright pages are clean.
• Provenance: Second-hand bookshop sticker on the back of the jacket: 'bibliophile, 311 church street, p o box 74, clarens, 9707', priced R129. No inscriptions or bookplates.
• The Dust Jacket: Present. The printed jacket is bright and clean, with a black spine lettered in red and white. The only blemish is the bookshop price sticker on the back panel. It is protected in a durable archival-type plastic cover.

Synopsis & Historical Value

A Hitler Youth: Growing up in Germany in the 1930s is the memoir of Henry Metelmann, a Hamburg railway worker's son who joined the Hitler Youth at the age of twelve, against the wishes of his socialist father.

The book recalls working-class life in Hamburg before the Nazi seizure of power, the scout movement that was absorbed into the Hitler Youth, and the violence used against opponents of the regime. It conveys the everyday family life and the confusion of a boy drawn into the movement.

This Spellmount edition of 2004 reissues a work first published in 1997 by Caliban Books. It gives collectors of Second World War literature and German social history a firsthand account of how the Nazi state reached into the lives of ordinary children.

Author Profile: Henry Metelmann

Henry Metelmann (1922-2011) was born in Altona, Hamburg, and grew up there during the rise of the Nazi regime. He settled in Britain after the war.

He is also the author of Through Hell for Hitler, a Wehrmacht memoir published by Spellmount, and his Hitler Youth years in Hamburg were recorded in an oral history interview held by the Imperial War Museum.

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