Surviving the Fatherland A True Comingofage Love Story Set in WWII Germany edition by Annette Oppenlander Literature Fiction eBooks
Download As PDF : Surviving the Fatherland A True Comingofage Love Story Set in WWII Germany edition by Annette Oppenlander Literature Fiction eBooks 
***Winner 2017 National Indie Excellence Award***Indie B.R.A.G. Award Honoree***Winner Chill with a Book Readers' Award***Finalist 2017 Book Awards***Winner Readers' Favorite Book Award***An IWIC Hall of Fame Novel***
"This book needs to join the ranks of the classic survivor stories of WWII such as "Diary of Anne Frank" and "Man's Search for Meaning". It is truly that amazing!" InD'taleMagazine
"...eye-opening and heartbreaking..." San Francisco Review of Books
"This novel is fast-paced and emotively worded and features a great selection of characters, flawed and poignantly three-dimensional." Historical Novel Society
Spanning thirteen years from 1940 to 1953 and set against the epic panorama of WWII, author Annette Oppenlander's SURVIVING THE FATHERLAND is a sweeping saga of family, love, and betrayal that illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen the children's war.
SURVIVING THE FATHERLAND tells the true and heart-wrenching stories of Lilly and Günter struggling with the terror-filled reality of life in the Third Reich, each embarking on their own dangerous path toward survival, freedom, and ultimately each other. Based on the author's own family and anchored in historical facts, this story celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the strength of war children.
When her father goes off to war, seven-year-old Lilly is left with an unkind mother who favors her brother and chooses to ignore the lecherous pedophile next door. A few blocks away, twelve-year-old Günter also looses his father to the draft and quickly takes charge of supplementing his family's ever-dwindling rations by any means necessary.
As the war escalates and bombs begin to rain, Lilly and Günter's lives spiral out of control. Every day is a fight for survival. On a quest for firewood, Lilly encounters a dying soldier and steals her father's last suit to help the man escape. Barely sixteen, Günter ignores his draft call and embarks as a fugitive on a harrowing 47-day ordeal--always just one step away from execution.
When at last the war ends, Günter grapples with his brother's severe PTSD and the fact that none of his classmates survived. Welcoming denazification, Lilly takes a desperate step to rid herself once and for all of her disgusting neighbor's grip. When Lilly and Günter meet in 1949, their love affair is like any other. Or so it seems. But old wounds and secrets have a way of rising to the surface once more.
Surviving the Fatherland A True Comingofage Love Story Set in WWII Germany edition by Annette Oppenlander Literature Fiction eBooks
Surviving the Fatherland: A True Coming of Age is unlike any World War II book I have ever read. I consider myself fairly well read on WWII in Europe and I probably have read 45 lengthy books. I have a few favorites authors including Stephen Ambrose and Antony Beevor. All have been written from the point of view of the Allied Armies and little, if any, was said about the citizens of Nazi Germany who had to survive the war as well live through the recovery of a devastated nation. This book is written in the first person of two characters, Gunter and Lilly, who are rather young when the war starts. Each goes through years of poverty and almost starvation, trying too survive the horrors of their families being separated. The book takes the reader through the eyes of two young people who grow into adulthood through the war and post-war Germany. The stories are very realistic and very difficult to read given the bounty that is available to all in the U.S. SPOILER ALERT: The author had a first hand knowledge of the life these two young adults lead; she is their daughter. Much of what is contained in the book are first hand accounts recorded by her parents before they passed away. I was able to learn about survival as well as how many German citizens really felt about the Hitler regime; it strongly recommend this book to all desiring to glimpse into the lives of normal citizens on the wrong side of WWII.Product details
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Surviving the Fatherland A True Comingofage Love Story Set in WWII Germany edition by Annette Oppenlander Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
Annette Oppenlander has captured the fears of the German people and the cruelties they endured during Hitler's rule. He not only was the master of manipulation for his cause he was as inhumane to his own people as those he chose to conquer and destroy. The true story is based on children growing up during WWII and the hardships they faced. While the world knows about the atrocities Hitler chose to reign on the Jews not everyone may be aware of the devastation he brought on his own people. It's a must read.
We most often hear stories of WW II from our side American, English, even French. This wonderful adult novel gives a fictional take on her parents’ real childhoods--showing us two young Germans and the hardships they suffered during and after the last Great War. At book’s opening, Lilly’s biggest concern is getting a doll she noticed in a downtown store window, but that day she discovers that her beloved Vati is departing for war, leaving her with Mutti who lavishes all her affection on the family’s young son. Another child, Günter also watches his father go to war. Not only his father but also his dear older brother. Soon with his friend Helmut, he forages forests and searches farmers’ fields for any food he can dig or steal to provide sustenance for his family.
As the war comes closer to home, the children endure carpet bombings. Oppenlander describes nights spent in bomb shelters so well that you experience the darkness, scent of fear, and the claustrophobia of hundreds of terrified humans up close.
Oppenlander does not avoid the dark side of war the conniving Nazi neighbors, the men using the chaos and breakdown of society to attack women. She doesn’t hold back from recording the gruesome or horrific, including a scene with a deserter’s horse and another of a double hanging. Yet, I would not call the novel dark, a surprising hopefulness runs through it. Lilly and Günter have the bad luck to be born shortly before a terrible war ravages their country. At a time when they are just discovering who they are, what life can offer, the war rips everything apart. In a world where death and destruction surround them, they prove courageous and resilient. They find their way. A compelling story that will linger long after you finish reading.
Set in Germany during WWII and its aftermath, Surviving the Fatherland is based on the author’s true family account of her mother’s and father’s childhood and teen years during Hitler’s final push and Germany’s eventual surrender, plus their youth and romance during the rebuilding years which followed. Oppenlander offers an insider’s view of an often-overlooked part of life in Germany during this time Hitler’s use of German children in the war, and the war’s effect on German children’s childhoods—and beyond. More than just historical facts, though, Surviving the Fatherland digs deep to make the hunger, fear, depression, and sadness palpable with every missed meal, dropped bomb, family betrayal, and death. That it allows the reader a glimmer of hope for the future as well is a testament to Oppenlander’s storytelling ability and her promise of life and love’s ability to endure.
A couple of declarations. I love war stories and In recent years I have taken to tales of how home-life went on in times of war. I am also an amateur writer myself so I know the effort that goes in to getting a book to a state of being read by the general public. As such, I very rarely offer bad reviews. I would prefer to not review at all than slag off someone else's efforts. Which brings me to this story. As a tale I loved it. It was interesting and there were enough exciting parts to make it great holiday reading. It was a slightly new-ish take on the old theme of life during WW2. As for the book itself, i can only assume that there has been an issue in the translation from German to English. Even allowing for that, I have to say that if this was edited in any way I would be surprised e.g the story flows from Chapter 28 in October to 29 in September. Then there's being 'in the drizzle of the summer drizzle'. Like I said, it is quite something for me to make a comment like this but when you take money for your work the reader should expect that it has been, at the very least, checked for basic errors. I'm not a wordsmith but there were just too many mistakes to make this easy reading and I think the lack of checking and editing detracted from what was a genuinely good story.
Surviving the Fatherland A True Coming of Age is unlike any World War II book I have ever read. I consider myself fairly well read on WWII in Europe and I probably have read 45 lengthy books. I have a few favorites authors including Stephen Ambrose and Antony Beevor. All have been written from the point of view of the Allied Armies and little, if any, was said about the citizens of Nazi Germany who had to survive the war as well live through the recovery of a devastated nation. This book is written in the first person of two characters, Gunter and Lilly, who are rather young when the war starts. Each goes through years of poverty and almost starvation, trying too survive the horrors of their families being separated. The book takes the reader through the eyes of two young people who grow into adulthood through the war and post-war Germany. The stories are very realistic and very difficult to read given the bounty that is available to all in the U.S. SPOILER ALERT The author had a first hand knowledge of the life these two young adults lead; she is their daughter. Much of what is contained in the book are first hand accounts recorded by her parents before they passed away. I was able to learn about survival as well as how many German citizens really felt about the Hitler regime; it strongly recommend this book to all desiring to glimpse into the lives of normal citizens on the wrong side of WWII.
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