Living in interesting times does not automatically make one a gifted writer. Ursula Mahlendorf’s memoirs are not always easy reading. The merit of the book is that it gives us a firsthand account in English of growing up in the Third Reich. Mahlendorf was an active member of the Bund deutscher Mädel and was a student at a Nazi-teachers’ training school. On top of that she is also a Heimatvertriebene from Strehlen (Strzelin) in Silesia who had to adapt herself to the (new) German Federal Republic. The book makes interesting reading for students in German studies and researchers of the period.
The book can be divided in two major parts, followed by an epilogue. The first part starts in 1929 with her birth and ends in May 1945 with the German defeat. Central themes in this section are her family, school and experiences in the youth movement.
The second part of the book deals with her post-war life. This includes her return to Polish-occupied Silesia and forced migration to West-Germany in the Spring of 1946. Important themes are her adventures as a Heimatvertriebene, her problems in adapting to West-German life and her Werdegang in school and university.
In the epilogue, the author deals intensely with her psychological problems and depressions and tries to connect these to the events and traumas in her life. This is a short but moving part of the book. It shows how devastating growing up in a totalitarian dictatorship can be.
All chapters start with a summary of the major political events of the period Mahlendorf is going to deal with. There are some strange mistakes. For example, she blames the Nazis for the Reichstagbrand, which is a rather outdated or at least a very contested point of view. She calls Der Stürmer an SS-magazine, and she states that the Potsdam-conference ended with a treaty, but all in all these sections are adequate to inform a wider audience. For experts in German history they are rather superficial. These introductions are followed by her personal adventures.
The main theme of the first part is the position of her family in the social spectrum of a German provincial town. In passing she also informs us about the Jewish minority and the existence of the nearby granite-quarry. This quarry-community is the opposite of Mahlendorf’s well-ordered world. The men from the quarry are unreliable communists and their children speak with a strange accent about indecent things such as sex.
The author tells us that her father was a member of the SS. In 1934, he landed a job with the city government, probably because of this membership. He could not enjoy his new status for long, as he died soon after. But despite her curiosity and all her research, Mahlendorf does not tell us anything interesting about her father or the role he played in the SS. The early death of her father did influence her, though, as it turned her into a selfish and envious girl.
As a child, Mahlendorf did not notice much of the deportations and the concentration camps. We know from the works of historians such as Dieter Pohl, Peter Longerich and Peter Fritzsche that most adult Germans must have realized that a genocide was going on. Mahlendorf gives us a few important clues that this was indeed the case. She tells us about the fear among Germans of severe punishment after the war. She describes her mother’s drunken friend who prophesies: ‘Kinder genießt den Krieg, der Frieden wird schrecklich’ (Children enjoy the war, peace will be horrible). This is probably the reason why the German army and the home front continued fighting for so long.
In her eagerness to be politically correct, Mahlendorf interprets the memories of her youth and even children’s games and songs with the standards of American political correctness of the 21st century. That is not only silly and a-historical but it lends her story a gloomy undertone that distorts her observations and her narrative.
The second part starts in May 1945 and it seems as if the book now comes alive. Her adventures are rather wild. After escaping the Russians and a suicide ritual with other Hitler-Jugend-leaders she returns to her village. After a winter under Polish occupation, the family is forced to leave Silesia for Germany. She is not really upset about her involuntary departure from Silesia, as she concludes that she would have left the boring countryside anyway.
Mahlendorf is an interesting witness to the German exodus because she is an intelligent young woman with a fine antenna for discrimination. What is remarkable is the lack of hospitality displayed by the West Germans. They are depicted as unfriendly and inhospitable. Of course receiving almost 10 million refugees wasn’t easy, but the lack of solidarity is striking. Ursula meets a few friendly people though. According to her, these people were exceptions. However, thanks to these exceptional people she forces her way into school and finally receives a decent education. She is bright enough to gain entrance to Tübingen University and from there she manages to leave for the United States on a Fulbright-scholarship.
The third part of the book is an epilogue. Mahlendorf looks back on her life and tries to find out why she has been suffering from depression all her life. She blames most of her problems on the untimely death of her father and the lack of warmth in her upbringing. This could be true, but I think there is more to it. She does not tell us about any sexual or erotic relationships, nor do we encounter one or more ‘Significant Other(s)’ in her book. I think this is rather odd. A few encounters with elderly, attractive women, such as her teacher Frau Scherzer and the nameless American ‘Lady in Black’ definitely carry an erotic undertone, but we learn nothing about her feelings. This is all the more remarkable considering that the author is definitely au courant with psychology and has herself undergone many years of therapy.
The book itself gives a clue to this strange omission. As I remarked above, there is a striking change in tone and style in the book as soon as the story reaches May 1945. The first part lacks passion. The second part is well written and the story gains momentum. In my opinion, this remarkable difference in style is a key to understanding the themes of the book and the psychological problems of the author.
Again and again Mahlendorf tells us that she hated her outings with the HJ and that even after all these decades she is still ashamed of her succumbing to the totalitarian seduction. I think there is a paradox here. If her activities were really uninteresting, boring or even appalling then why was she so ambitious? Why was she proud to be a leader and why was she disappointed and envious when passed over for promotion?
One could say she hates herself for being a member of the HJ. I think that this self-hate inhibits Mahlendorf’s emotional life. It is still, after all these years, impossible for her to acknowledge that she was simply having a good time at the Bund deutscher Mädel and other Nazi-activities. This is not a crime but was a rather common emotion for many Germans of her age. For true Volksgenossen, the Third Reich was a rather pleasant place to be, at least until 1939. Why not simply admit this? It might even have a therapeutic effect on Frau Mahlendorf and would have made her book even more interesting and enjoyable.
