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On Hitler''s Mountain is a powerful, intimate, riveting, and
revealing account of a seemingly halcyon life lived mere paces from
a center of evil and madness; a remarkable memoir of an "ordinary"
childhood spent in an extraordinary time and place.
Born in 1934, Irmgard Hunt grew up in the picturesque Bavarian
village of Berchtesgaden, in the shadow of the Eagle''s Nest and
near Adolf Hitler''s luxurious alpine retreat. The very model of
blond Aryan "purity," Irmgard sat on the Fü hrer''s knee for
photographers, witnessed with excitement the comings and goings of
all manner of famous personages, and with the blindness of a child
accepted the Nazi doctrine that most of her family and everyone
around her so eagerly embraced. Here, in a picture-postcard world
untouched by the war and seemingly unblemished by the horrors
Germany''s master had wrought, she accepted the lies of her
teachers and church and civic leaders, joined the Hitler Youth at
age ten, and joyfully sang the songs extolling the virtues of
National Socialism.
But before the end -- when she and other children would be
forced to cower in terror in dank bomb shelters and wartime
deprivations would take a harrowing toll -- Irmgard''s doubts about
the "truths" she had been force-fed increased, fueled by the few
brave souls who had not accepted Hitler and his abominations. After
the fall of the brutal dictatorship and the suicide of its mad
architect, many of her neighbors and loved ones still clung to
their beliefs, prejudices, denial, and unacknowledged guilt.
Irmgard, often feeling lonely in her quest, was determined to face
the truth of her country''s criminal past and to bear the
responsibility for an almost unbearablereality that most of her
elders were determined to forget. She resolved even then that the
lessons of her youth would guide her actions and steel her
commitment to defend the freedoms and democratic values that had
been so easily dismissed by the German people.
Provocative and astonishing, Irmgard A. Hunt''s On Hitler''s
Mountain offers a unique, gripping, and vitally important
first-person perspective on a tumultuous era in modern history, as
viewed through the eyes of a child -- a candid and fascinating
document, free of rationalization and whitewash, that chronicles
the devastating moral collapse of a civilized nation.