This wonderful book gives you vivid details of what it meant to be a German refugee escaping death, destruction, rape and atrocities commited after the war. For once, we are given a perspective so hardly discussed in books on WWII. I truly learned that the German people were also victims just like those in France, Poland, Russia etc. Wolfgang Samuel paints a picture in which you gain extreme respect for the courage and tenacity he and his family displayed to simply stay alive and get through Soviet barbarism, poverty, humiliation and overall death and destruction...
What I really liked about the book was Wolfgang's ability to show both the evil and good of mankind through his descriptive writings and personal experiences. All and all, I highly recommend this book to people who not only enjoy WWII history, but enjoy reading about the triumph of the human spirit...
There are two subtexts of this book that need to be mentioned. First, the book is a celebration of capitalism and a condemnation of socialism in both its Nazi and Soviet incarnations. Second, (a theme that Samuel would probably reject) the book demonstrates the immeasurable consequences that sexual immorality can have on the lives of children--the immorality of Samuel's father certainly, but that of his mother (whom he idolizes) as well.
Samuel's book deserves a wide audience. However, if the book does gain a measure of success, more questions may be asked about the reliability of the author's "pictures of life and death...carried in the vault of [his] memory, unchanged by time." Imagine the two most traumatic events in your childhood between the ages of ten and fifteen, and then try to fill in the space between them with accurate description. Can the result truly be regarded as "unchanged by time"?
"German Boy" is an important work. As a history, it relates something about a period of history that is not commonly known -- the horrors of World War II in Europe continued long after the fighting ended in May of 1945. As a personal account, it offers hope. Wolfgang Samuel, like millions of children before, during, and since World War II, directly experienced events through which no child should ever have to suffer. His story highlights the resilience of the individual and illustrates that with the will, the perseverance, optimism, and some luck, one can survive disaster and live a better life. This volume would make excellent supplemenary reading for high school and college history courses.
Those who find "German Boy" to be of interest may also consider reading another excellent book, which is titled, "A Woman in Berlin." The author is anonymous. As the title suggests, the book is a published journal written by a young woman while she was living in Berlin during the weeks before the fall of the city to the Soviets and through the first weeks of the Soviet occupation. It was published during the 1950s and is now out of print. However, it is not too difficult to find and it is well worth the effort.