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Alfon Heck had been considered himself fortunate because he was one of the millions of German children who had been Adolf Hitlers chosen people, his Master Race (Aryans)

Alfon had not had blond hair or blue eyes or the Nordic-Germanic look that Hitler preferred. He was still a German which was enough for Adolf.

The Heck’s had been there for more than 150 years before hitler came to power.

They settled in the Rhineland region of Germany close to French border.

Alfons family had farmed near Wittlich, raising grapes for wine.
Alfon was raised by a grandmother who adored him.

He had been only 6 weeks old when his parents moved to Oberhausen, which is a large city and the grandmother talked them into leaving him with her.

On January 30th 1933 Germany at last proclaimed adolf hitler its leader and at that time Alfon was on six years old. Alfons farm was 200 miles away so he didn’t see his parents often.

Hitler had more control about what the children were learning now that he burned over 70,000 books.

Alfons father did not agree with Hitler youth.

Alfon was chosen to attend the Nuremberg Party Congress, the “high mass” of Nazism.

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Got into the Luftwaffe. The Gestapo was the Nazis secret state power.
Himmler ordered the expansion of the death camps.
Alfons brother is in Czechoslovakia.
Around 1944 16 year olds were drafted.
The Luftwaffe was the pride of the German military. Established in 1933.
Without ever uttering the word defeat, the German government at last announced an end to the fighting in Russia on February 3, 1943.
Alfon had just been promoted to Scharführer, which put me in charge of fifty boys. (1943)

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Received an iron cross from Hitler himself.

Youth were taught that the Jews started the war.

looked like heaven for the hitler youth

he joined April 28th, 1938

Nuremberg is the Nazi show case (50,000 chose of the 8 million hitler youth)
Stood 40-50 feet from podium and made eye contact with Hitler.
Felt invincible after encounter

In 1940 deportations started
Thought it was justified

best friend Heinz was Jewish

Started fighting Russia in (1941 surrendered in 1943)

Everything was run by the Hitler youth.

Women taught how to shoot guns.

• ether win or die

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The D-Day landings in June had brought thousands of Allied troops treacherously close to the Fatherland.

The West Wall, known to Americans as the Siegfried Line, was a deep, heavily guarded line of defense that ran along the western border of Germany. Hitler had ordered the wall built in 1936 as protection against what was then a remote possibility of invasion. The line stretched some 300 miles north from Switzerland to the border of Holland. It was guarded like a sacred fortress-the gateway into the Fatherland.

Alfon is Bannführer and Gefolschaftsführer of Flieger Gefolgschaft 12.

Gefolgschaftsführer - a rank nearly equal to an army captain, in charge of 150 to 190 boys.

Oberleutnant - first lieutenant

Dug endless an endless ditch along the west wall.

Met Albert Speer (minister of armaments and ammunition’s)

The door opened and in walked Adolf Hitler. My heart pounded. Here was the only man still able to rally our people behind him. He looked old, frail, and quite pale.

When he took a few steps toward the table, he seemed to limp. I guessed it was an injury from the bomb explosion.

As he lifted his right arm, we roared, Heil, mein Führer!" and a smile flickered across his face. When he began to speak, his pale blue eyes seemed to bore directly into mine. He talked no more than five minutes and what he said was meant for us, the Hitler Youth. "We shall destroy the enemy at the very gates to the Fatherland," he promised. "This is where we are going to turn the tide and split the allies once and for all."

As we moved toward the door to leave, Hitler held out his arm and said a few special words to each of us. When I gripped his hand, it felt warm and sweaty, with little firm-ness. He glanced at the triangle on my upper left arm.

"You are from the Moselland, my boy," he said. "I know I can depend on you."

"Jawohl, mein Führer," I whispered. I wiped my eyes as I walked down the steps. I knew that nothing in the rest of my life would ever equal this day.

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After fighting in Bitsburg Alfons went back to Wittlich to await his next orders.

2 days later his hometown was under attack by the American Third Army.

Alfons caught a ride on Wehrmacht supply truck headed towards the Rhine River. (Natural barrier)

Before Alfons could reach his aunt's house, the first American artillery shells whistled into Wittlich. The Amis had arrived.

The Wehrmacht had blown up the iron railroad bridge in Wittlich. Minutes later, explosions rocked a larger, bridge just a few miles north. The collapse of these bridges would cut Wittlich's railway link to the outside world for the next four years.

German soldiers ran for the hills.

With his Aunt Tilly. She burned his uniform.

Dozens of Sherman tanks appeared down the road.

Buried his Luftwaffte uniform in the chicken coop.

The tanks ignored Alfons. They assumed he was a child.

Learning English saved his life.

Anyone caught on the street from 6 p.m. To 7 am would be shot on the spot.

Told his he was apart of the Luftwaffe.

The officers fed and cared for Alfons to translate.

Remembers Hans Leiwitz words “Take like if you’re given the choice.”

Hans was shot as a traitor.

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Nazi Germany, my Germany, perished with Hitler. Our dreams of power and glory were over. We were slaves now, headed into a never-ending darkness.

As ordered, Alfons had turned himself in when the next unit of American troops entered Wittlich. Again his knowledge of English had saved him; he was put to work in a hospital, translating orders from the American officers to the German workers.

Conditions in the hospital were good.

After losing his job, Alfons spent his days helping his grandmother and aunts clear rubble from the family farm.

Uncle Hornung kept them alive by bringing potatoes and some lard from his farm a few miles away. But since he wasn't allowed to take his horses out of his own village, the plowing of the fields had to be done by hand.

“Rubble women” - women and sometimes children who rebuilt their homes.

Alfons couldn’t leave town.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower, commander of all Allied troops, led American liberators into Ohrdruf, the first German camp to be liberated. What he saw shocked him so much that he sent hurried messages to London and the United States, asking journalists and government leaders to come at once to see for themselves. His wife and the towns mayor were so disturbed, they hung themselves.

"I saw and photographed the piles of naked, lifeless bod-ies, the human skeletons in furnaces, the living skeletons who would die the next day because they had had to wait too long for help, the pieces of tattooed skin for lampshades. Using the camera was almost a relief. It put a barrier between myself and the horror in front of me." - Margaret Bourke-White. (Photographer and journalist)

Alfons was arrested by French soldiers.

Alfons was put to hard labor.

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School reopened. Most people who he attended school with were either dead or in prison.

Everyone was a member of the Wehrmacht or the Hitler Youth.

Teachers who were apart of the Nazis Party could no longer teach, leaving them short staffed.

Rudolph (Alfons twin brother) rode more than 130 miles on his bike to return to the family farm. He tried to put the war behind him unlike Alfons.

Alfons was struggling and carried a large amount of guilt for the whole generation.

Allies chose Nuremberg for the trials.

Reichsparteitag - Rally of the Mazy party.

May 27 1942 Heydrich organizer of the Final Solution had been assassinated in Czechoslovakia. The Germans burned the entire village of Lidicd, killed all of its men, and sent women and children to concentration camps.

Himmler captures May 23, 1945. Committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule.

Mengele (Angel of death) escaped to South America and his until he died of natural causes in 1977.

Robert Ley - Nazi Labor Leader hung himself from is prison cell before trial in Nuremberg.

One of the twenty-two Nazis scheduled for trial was not present in the courtroom. That was Martin Bormann, Hitler's private secretary. Some said Bormann had been killed while trying to escape during the final Battle of Berlin. Hitler Youth leader Arthur Axmann claimed to have seen his body near a bridge not far from Hitler's bunker. He was found guilty in absence and sentenced to death.

In 1972 Berlin construction workers found the skeletons of two Ben near the bridge. One of which being Martin Bormann, the other bing Hitlers private doctor.

Nazis accused were tried on four counts as followed:

Planning to Commit Crimes

Crimes Against Peace

War Crimes

Crimes Against Humanity

Highest ranking Nazi on trail was Hermann Göring, Hitlers second in command. Took 40 Narcotic Pills a day.

Rudolph Hess - Helped write Mein Kampf

Julius Streicher - Hitlers good friend owned Der Stürmer.

Hans Frank - Governor of Nazi occupied Poland.

Baldur Von Schirach - First leader of the Hitler Youth and later the most powerful Nazi in Austria. Born in 1907. Governed Vienna.

“It is my guilt that I trained them for a man who became a murderer a million times over.” Baldur Von Schirach.

August 31st, 1946 the defendants were given one last chance to speak.

"I wish to state, with a clear conscience to our German youth, that they are completely innocent of the atrocities of the Hitler regime.... They know nothing of the many acts of horror that have been committed by Germans by creating an atmosphere that is free of hatred and vengeance." Baldur Von Schirach.

On October 1, 1946, the day the verdicts were to be read.

International Military Court sentenced Göring to death by hanging. He committed suicide by cyanide capsules in his cell.

All Nazi bodies were sent to Dachau, burned in the same ovens as their Jewish victims.

Hans Frank and Julius Streicher along with 8 other top Nazis were sentenced to death by hanging.

Rudolph was sentenced to life in prison until 1987 when he committed suicide.