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The Burden of Hitler's Legacy
A high-ranking leader of Hitler Youth organization continues his account of life in Nazi Germany by detailing how the German themselves, most notably young people, were also victimized by Hitler's madness and describes his denazification and gradual realization of his part in the tragedy.
266 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1988
5 people are currently reading
122 people want to read
About the author
Alfons Heck
4 books4 followersAlfons Heck was a member of the Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany, who eventually became an officer in that organization and a fanatical adherent of Nazism.
In the 1970s, having emigrated to the United States via Canada and having lived in the US for several decades, Heck began to write candidly of his youthful military experiences in news articles and two books. Thereafter, he partnered with Jewish Holocaust survivor Helen Waterford, each presenting their differing wartime circumstances before more than 200 audiences, most notably in schools and colleges.
In the 1970s, having emigrated to the United States via Canada and having lived in the US for several decades, Heck began to write candidly of his youthful military experiences in news articles and two books. Thereafter, he partnered with Jewish Holocaust survivor Helen Waterford, each presenting their differing wartime circumstances before more than 200 audiences, most notably in schools and colleges.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 27, 2019
If you haven’t read “A Child of Hitler” by Alfons Heck, I strongly advise to start with that book first as “The Burden of Hitler’s Legacy” will make much more sense after you’ve read his memoir first. “The Burden” is not so much of a memoir as his first book but more of an analysis of his teenage years in the Hitlerjugend and the author’s eventual coming to terms with his past of the regime’s loyal fanatic. What is truly worth an applause is Mr. Heck’s owning up to his past’s mistakes (I’m not saying ‘war crimes’ here because he didn’t commit any and was officially cleared by the denazification court after the war) instead of making excuses or shifting the blame onto someone else like most of his counterparts would have done. I also enjoyed the progress of his friendship with a Holocaust survivor Helen and their mutual decision to educate the younger generation by working as quite an unorthodox team - a victim and a perpetrator sitting side by side and each presenting their side of the story. As the book was coming to an end, I actually regretted that I was born much too late and wasn’t able to attend any of their joined lectures - what a fascinating experience that would have been! Overall, it’s definitely a valuable research source for anyone interested in the history of WW2 and the Holocaust and just a very interesting memoir, told from a former Hitlerjugend member’s point of view.
October 15, 2007
I read this book in my "History of the Holocaust" class. It is an "autobiography" about a man who was part of the Hitler Youth. He describes his experiences before, during, and after his involvement in Hitler's regime. It was interesting to learn how he became part of the Hitler Youth and how he later met, faced, and worked with those who he had persecuted.
September 25, 2023
This is an autobiography of a German boy who served in the Hitler Youth. He was 17 when the war ended in 1945.
He provides us with a full view of his indoctrination. He was an out-and-out Nazi – worshipping the Nazi ideology and the Führer. Until the last weeks of the war he believed Germany would win.
He served in Western Germany, not far from his hometown of Wittlich, a farming area. His goal was to be a Luftwaffe pilot, but most of his time was spent constructing the “West Wall” - a fortification that was to stop the Allies (American, British and Canadian) from advancing unto German soil. It did little to stop the Allies.
Towards the end (Christmas of 1944) the author was in charge of several hundred Hitler Youth, as well as older men (Volksstrum), recruited to fight the Allies. He sent these people to their certain deaths against superior Allied forces. He felt a responsibility for them, and had to face the consequences of this for the remainder of his life.
Most of the book is about his time with the Hitler Youth. I found it honestly written, and he does not provide excuses for his indoctrination. In fact, for the most part, he enjoyed his war years with the Hitler Youth. It gave him a sense of identity, belonging, and serving the fatherland.
After the war he went through a phase of disillusionment and slowly came to realize the full extent of the atrocities of the Nazi regime. Unlike many Germans of the post-war era, he wanted to know what had really happened. He did not feel responsible for the Holocaust and the barbarism on the Eastern Front, but he did realize his collusion. He mentions the few Jewish people in his rural community who disappeared and were later murdered in concentration camps.
The author went through a long deprogramming period of several years to rid himself of his Nazi training. Judging from what he wrote, the Hitler Youth was extremely well organized and motivational. Get them when they are young.
He had learned some English in Germany and even worked after the war with U.S. troops. In the 1950s he immigrated to Canada and worked in the lumber and railway industry on Vancouver Island on the extreme west coast of Canada. He married a Canadian woman and they moved to San Diego – likely for the weather!
It was there that he met and be-friended a Holocaust survivor, Helen Waterford. He teamed up with her and beginning in 1980 they toured the U.S., speaking to students and Jewish groups about Germany and the conditions that led to Nazism and the Holocaust. One could say that they made an odd couple. Sometimes their reception was hostile. Some could not see why a Holocaust survivor was on the same platform as an ex-Nazi (some believed he was still a Nazi).
I did not agree with everything the author wrote. He partially blamed the Treaty of Versailles for the onset of the Second World War. This is falling into Hitler’s trap of victimization. Also, he states that the German people were unaware of the Holocaust. He was in Western Germany which was distant from the camps in Poland. But he also mentions the several hundred camps spread across Germany – and he was aware of some of these. What of the thousands of slave labourers working in Germany? The millions of soldiers on the Eastern Front who would talk of their experiences and the brutality? The thousands of railroad workers who saw Jews in cattle cars? I believe the author was in denial of these facts.
Nevertheless, a very interesting book giving a close-up view of the cult of Nazi Germany. The author died in 2005 at the age of 76.
He provides us with a full view of his indoctrination. He was an out-and-out Nazi – worshipping the Nazi ideology and the Führer. Until the last weeks of the war he believed Germany would win.
He served in Western Germany, not far from his hometown of Wittlich, a farming area. His goal was to be a Luftwaffe pilot, but most of his time was spent constructing the “West Wall” - a fortification that was to stop the Allies (American, British and Canadian) from advancing unto German soil. It did little to stop the Allies.
Towards the end (Christmas of 1944) the author was in charge of several hundred Hitler Youth, as well as older men (Volksstrum), recruited to fight the Allies. He sent these people to their certain deaths against superior Allied forces. He felt a responsibility for them, and had to face the consequences of this for the remainder of his life.
Most of the book is about his time with the Hitler Youth. I found it honestly written, and he does not provide excuses for his indoctrination. In fact, for the most part, he enjoyed his war years with the Hitler Youth. It gave him a sense of identity, belonging, and serving the fatherland.
After the war he went through a phase of disillusionment and slowly came to realize the full extent of the atrocities of the Nazi regime. Unlike many Germans of the post-war era, he wanted to know what had really happened. He did not feel responsible for the Holocaust and the barbarism on the Eastern Front, but he did realize his collusion. He mentions the few Jewish people in his rural community who disappeared and were later murdered in concentration camps.
The author went through a long deprogramming period of several years to rid himself of his Nazi training. Judging from what he wrote, the Hitler Youth was extremely well organized and motivational. Get them when they are young.
He had learned some English in Germany and even worked after the war with U.S. troops. In the 1950s he immigrated to Canada and worked in the lumber and railway industry on Vancouver Island on the extreme west coast of Canada. He married a Canadian woman and they moved to San Diego – likely for the weather!
It was there that he met and be-friended a Holocaust survivor, Helen Waterford. He teamed up with her and beginning in 1980 they toured the U.S., speaking to students and Jewish groups about Germany and the conditions that led to Nazism and the Holocaust. One could say that they made an odd couple. Sometimes their reception was hostile. Some could not see why a Holocaust survivor was on the same platform as an ex-Nazi (some believed he was still a Nazi).
I did not agree with everything the author wrote. He partially blamed the Treaty of Versailles for the onset of the Second World War. This is falling into Hitler’s trap of victimization. Also, he states that the German people were unaware of the Holocaust. He was in Western Germany which was distant from the camps in Poland. But he also mentions the several hundred camps spread across Germany – and he was aware of some of these. What of the thousands of slave labourers working in Germany? The millions of soldiers on the Eastern Front who would talk of their experiences and the brutality? The thousands of railroad workers who saw Jews in cattle cars? I believe the author was in denial of these facts.
Nevertheless, a very interesting book giving a close-up view of the cult of Nazi Germany. The author died in 2005 at the age of 76.
October 14, 2018
Alfons Heck - The Burden Of Hitlers's Legacy.
A vehicle to realization. The story of Hitlers victims, the Holocaust, has been etched into human consciousness the world over and will remain forever a bludgeon to those who prosecuted his cause.
Alfons Heck, a Hitler Youth and an unknowing accomplice. This book is Hecks journey to yet another accomplice (yin and yang), however unlikely, a Holocaust survivor, Helen Waterford...
"When I joined the Hitler Youth as a 10 year old in 1938, I never could have foreseen the destruction of the Germany I loved. Equally incredible to me now is that I stand next to a survivor of Auschwitz on the lecture stage, not as an antagonist or apologist but as a partner. Our perspectives of the Nazi years are so opposite in terms of our personal experience that some listeners are offended by our joint appearance. How can a victim join a perpetrator? The truth is that we both became victims, although certainly not to the same degree."
"The Hitler era with its roughly 50 million casualties was much more than a Jewish tragedy. It is an indictment of all humanity, which has left me with a lasting skepticism about the innate goodness of man."
With this conclusion to Hecks preface, the dark cloud that pervades ones existence, steps out of the shadows... for just a moment. For its stealth remains. For in every other waking moment, and in dream, it is there, patiently lurking... forever ready to cloud, cripple and torment. Sadness! It was my fathers hidden "friend" unto his demise... and now... it is mine.
"The innocents most burdened by the past are the children of the survivors and the children of the former Nazi officials or war veterans. To see how disturbingly the past can intrude into the future, a person need not look beyond these two groups. The word "survivor" has become an encomium for the children of former Nazi terror survivors, but a curse for the children of former Nazis, creating in both, sometimes severe psychological problems."
A vehicle to realization. The story of Hitlers victims, the Holocaust, has been etched into human consciousness the world over and will remain forever a bludgeon to those who prosecuted his cause.
Alfons Heck, a Hitler Youth and an unknowing accomplice. This book is Hecks journey to yet another accomplice (yin and yang), however unlikely, a Holocaust survivor, Helen Waterford...
"When I joined the Hitler Youth as a 10 year old in 1938, I never could have foreseen the destruction of the Germany I loved. Equally incredible to me now is that I stand next to a survivor of Auschwitz on the lecture stage, not as an antagonist or apologist but as a partner. Our perspectives of the Nazi years are so opposite in terms of our personal experience that some listeners are offended by our joint appearance. How can a victim join a perpetrator? The truth is that we both became victims, although certainly not to the same degree."
"The Hitler era with its roughly 50 million casualties was much more than a Jewish tragedy. It is an indictment of all humanity, which has left me with a lasting skepticism about the innate goodness of man."
With this conclusion to Hecks preface, the dark cloud that pervades ones existence, steps out of the shadows... for just a moment. For its stealth remains. For in every other waking moment, and in dream, it is there, patiently lurking... forever ready to cloud, cripple and torment. Sadness! It was my fathers hidden "friend" unto his demise... and now... it is mine.
"The innocents most burdened by the past are the children of the survivors and the children of the former Nazi officials or war veterans. To see how disturbingly the past can intrude into the future, a person need not look beyond these two groups. The word "survivor" has become an encomium for the children of former Nazi terror survivors, but a curse for the children of former Nazis, creating in both, sometimes severe psychological problems."
January 25, 2018
This is a brutally frank account of what it was like for a child to grow up in Nazi Germany. Alfons Heck was 5 years old when Hitler came to power in 1933. He joined the Hitler Youth at the age of 10 in 1938 and as a 17 year old had risen to a key leadership role by the end of the war. He was imprisoned by the French occupiers of his town in the Rhineland and threatened with execution. Alfons' subsequent renunciation of all he had been brought up to believe; his eventual immigration to first British Columbia and then California; and his becoming a noted author and lecturer with Holocaust survivor Helen Waterford is an incredible narrative. He has never asked for forgiveness only understanding and vigilance to keep this from ever happening again.
December 22, 2023
Heck's story illuminates many cultic experiences even in contemporary times.
Look beneath the surface of his experience to grasp the cultural, emotional, and social barriers that keep political and religious cult members today trapped in destructive, anti-democratic behaviors.
Further, be mindful of what and how he realized he had been fooled from his early childhood and became brave enough to break the mental and psychological shackles which had kept him bound to worshipping an alleged "strongman" who was, in reality, nothing close to strong.
Look beneath the surface of his experience to grasp the cultural, emotional, and social barriers that keep political and religious cult members today trapped in destructive, anti-democratic behaviors.
Further, be mindful of what and how he realized he had been fooled from his early childhood and became brave enough to break the mental and psychological shackles which had kept him bound to worshipping an alleged "strongman" who was, in reality, nothing close to strong.
March 22, 2018
3.5 stars. I read this for a Holocaust class I'm taking. By the time I got to the end, I realized how much I liked the book, but getting through it was tough. The jumping back and forth between before, during, and after the war threw me off and made the story hard to follow sometimes. However, this perspective is very valuable and important, and I definitely will consider picking this up again in the future.
March 15, 2014
First read "A Child of Hitler" by this authour. His stark account of his rise in the Nazi Youth party.
This book gives his thoughts on what happened during those years. A good read yet still educational.
This book gives his thoughts on what happened during those years. A good read yet still educational.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews