Sometimes family have the best stories, such is the case with Giles Milton who wrote about the wartime adventures of his father in law Wolfram Aichele in the German Army.
Often we find history is written or revised by the victors and the voices of the vanquished can be muted.
Wolfram Aichele was nine years old when Hitler came to power in the 1930’s, he grew up under the shadow of the Third Reich and whilst blessed with free thinking artistic parents who lived in a virtually separated world from most people in Nazi Germany, was unable to escape the inevitability of war and eventual defeat.
Wolfram saw service through out the European Theatre as a “funker”, radio operator. He saw little action. being seriously ill in the Russian Theatre, surviving the D day landings in Normandy, being captured and sent to work in America, all before he was 21 years of age.
It is an interesting tale of luck, for it was only luck…being in the right place at the right time, that saved this young German boy.
The book is a fascinating read into how the Nazis trapped the whole population in their web of cruelty and deceit. I for one learnt a lot about how it became impossible to avoid their stranglehold over every day life and I had a lot more sympathy for those Germans who opposed Nazi idealogy but found no way out.
Milton gores into specific detail with family and friends for those who lived under the shadow of the Reich and threat of Allied bombs.
I also learnt a lot about “after the war” and the life of Germany prisoners of war in occupied France. A story not really told. In some cases it was years before the soldiers returned home.
