The Nazi and the Luftgangster

ISBN-13: 9780473220860 / Angielski / Miękka / 2014 / 350 str.

D. B. Williamson; Lutz Dille

Opis

A combination of the autobiographies of two young men and their experiences during the Second World War. First, Doug Williamson, a British teenager who becomes a flight engineer flying in a Lancaster bomber in 75 NZ squadron. We follow his experiences after bailing out over Leipzig, and his capture in the last days of the war. He goes to be a tea planter in India and later emigrates to Canada and then to New Zealand. Next we meet a German lad who was in the Hitler Youth and follow his failed attempt to escape to Britain. Then, when he's an army reconnaissance photographer on the eastern front, we share his retreat from Kiev and eventual capture by the Americans. The book covers his experiences in Germany under the Russian occupation, learning to become a professional photographer and later emigration to Canada where he meets Doug. The British airman's meeting and friendship with the German illustrates that warfare is purely a political affair driven by leaders who convince people their 'enemies' are sub-human and driven by a thirst for power, lack of intelligence or religious bigotry, when in actual fact they are just ordinary people like themselves who are coerced into unthinking acts of violence by the pressure of society and custom. The book gives a unique insight into the lives of combatants on opposite sides of World War Two who became lifelong friends.