The Boy Who Dared: List 4

Gerhard is so reasonable, so predictable, so resolute, always doing the right thing, obeying the law, even when he doesn't agree with it.

"I'm writing my thesis for graduation," Helmuth tells him. "It's about the difference between National Socialism and a plutocracy."

That afternoon the train station is crowded with crying mothers and sweethearts, stoic fathers, and children, waving red, white, and black flags.

Helmuth hates the drums, hates how they quicken his blood, how they belie his true feelings and try to convince him that war is good.

The table is strewn with books and papers.

He carries the radio gingerly to the kitchen table.

In perfect German, the radio announcer says jauntily, as if he's announcing a tennis match, "This is BBC London with the German news broadcast!"

He thinks about Gerhard, the way he locked up the radio for safekeeping, told Helmuth to leave it alone, the way he moralized to Helmuth.

He's never in a hurry to dismiss his students; he always wants to impart one more bit of knowledge before he sends them into the world.

Then he adds softly, "But in class, your idealism shows as well. Be careful of idealism, my boy, for idealism is the most dangerous doctrine of all."

It's a coveted apprenticeship, one awarded to those who excel in school and are expected to move into important government positions.

He plucks a book from the shelf, Geist und Tat, Spirit and Action, by Heinrich Mann, who criticized Germany's growing fascism so loudly that he was forced to flee after Hitler became chancellor.

Hugo pounds the table with his fist. "We're at war! We can't permit such defeatist talk. Complainers and grumblers, doubters and agitators—they only serve to embolden the enemy."

Hugo pounds the table with his fist. "We're at war! We can't permit such defeatist talk. Complainers and grumblers, doubters and agitators—they only serve to embolden the enemy."

It is well known that Neuengamme is a concentration camp near Hamburg, notorious for its subhuman conditions, where brutal guards force prisoners to do hard labor with inadequate food and live in squalid cells.

It is well known that Neuengamme is a concentration camp near Hamburg, notorious for its subhuman conditions, where brutal guards force prisoners to do hard labor with inadequate food and live in squalid cells.

"But look what they do to people who dare to challenge them," says Karl. "They crush dissent, any way they can."

Hess had commandeered a fighter plane and landed in Glasgow, Scotland, where he was captured.

"German people!" shouts Hitler. "At this moment, an attack unprecedented in the history of the world in its extent and size has begun. The purpose of this front is no longer the protection of the individual nation, but the safety of Europe, and therefore the salvation of everyone. May God help us in this battle."

After a frugal supper of cabbage-and-carrot soup and Leberwurst, liver sausage, Helmuth hurries Oma as they clear away the dishes.

"Then the Russians opened up with grenades and machine guns. The Russians organized a bayonet counterattack and forced the Germans to retreat. The Nazis left behind twenty-five hundred dead and wounded, thirty tanks and Bren Gun Carriers, eighty motorcycles, almost five hundred automatic weapons, ninety machine guns, and forty-five mortars."

Helmuth nods. "The BBC reports give more details. They give their own casualties, too, not just ours. They don't hide the news from the British people. They just give the information, without telling us how to interpret it."

Karl grimaces, looks sheepish. "My parents won't let me out every night. They're afraid I'll get caught in an air raid."

Rudi grabs the Hitler Youth flier. "'German boys,'" he reads. "'Do you know what the Hitler Youth is and what goals it pursues?'" Rudi grunts in agreement. "'It's a compulsory organization of the highest order for the cultivation of obedient Nazis.'"

Helmuth looks earnestly at his friends. "We must attack. We're being lied to. We must let people know the truth. Read the last line, Karl."