A Mind in Prison: The Memoir of a Son and Soldier in the Third Reich
"Germans lacked the American spirit." This is the conclusion that Manz reaches through writing this honest, soul-searching autobiography in which he attempts to understand the Third Reich and his place within it. Now a physicist and U.S. citizen, Manz was the son of an anti-Semitic father whom he loved. Though his early education was dominated by one teacher who resisted the Nazification of the classroom, Manz entered the Hitler Youth and recounts how he was shaped by Nazi tales of a Jewish conspiracy against Germany. Shortly after WWII began, Manz joined the Luftwaffe and became a ground support soldier stationed in northern Finland. After hand-to-hand fighting with the Soviets during the withdrawal to Norway late in the war, Manz was among those who surrendered to the British in 1945. Emaciated and torn with guilt, Manz survived, returned to his home town of ?rlinghausen in northwestern Germany and eventually became a university student, emigrating in 1957. Throughout his narrative, he recounts the instances where he was confronted with the truth of the Nazi regime, but chose to look the other way and do nothing. Ashamed and disillusioned by war's end, Manz at last tried to come to grips with the awful truth of the Holocaust. The resulting "unlocking" of Manz's mind becomes the apologyAthis bookAfor his part in supporting a monstrous government. Photos not seen by PW.Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.