117 pages • 3-hour read
Projekt 1065
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Themes
Sacrifice of the Individual for the Greater Good
Near the opening of the novel, Michael remembers Kristallnacht, the night the Nazis attacked and rounded up Jews throughout Berlin, and the night Michael first understood the depths of the Nazis’ depravity. Michael was struck by the image of one Jewish man being mercilessly beaten by a group of Germans, and by his own parents’ refusal to help the man. Michael’s parents explained that if they fought the injustice occurring “‘right here and now’” (10), they’d be captured and unable to complete their larger mission of helping the Allies, and ultimately saving many more people. Michael, however, remains haunted by the “helpless” (21) feeling of watching innocent people suffer; throughout the novel, he will wrestle with the question of when compromising one’s own morals is acceptable in service of the greater good.
Throughout the novel, Michael pretends to be a loyal Nazi boy in order to get closer to the Nazis and learn their secrets, and along the way, he must espouse philosophies and take part in actions he doesn’t agree with. When it comes to smaller acts such as burning books, Michael is willing to “burn every last book in Berlin” (36) if doing so will help the Allies win—even if he’s “consigning little bits of [his] soul to the fire” (36) as well. As Michael joins the SRD and participates in more disturbing missions, such as attacking youth who protest Hitler and shooting antiaircraft guns at British bombers, he must sacrifice more and more “little bits” of his soul and morals to his mission. However, it’s Michael’s interaction with two adults he respects, Melcher and the British pilot Simon, that teaches him the true importance—and cost—of sacrifice.
When the SRD members attack Melcher for his lack of patriotism and deliver him to the Gestapo, Michael first considers the downside of sacrificing an individual, especially when the choice to do so is motivated by fear. Michael calls the police, but they refuse to stop the SRD from beating up Melcher—the policemen’s looks seem to say, “If we do or say anything, they’ll come for us next” (175). Michael reflects that this fear of helping others “was how Nazi Germany had gotten to be this way in the first place” (175). As he did during Kristallnacht, he wishes he and other good people could step in and stand up for what is right. However, Michael also understands that the Nazis have grown too powerful to be stopped so simply; he remembers Simon telling him that “[s]ometimes we have to sacrifice good people to win a war” (176), and he allows Melcher to be taken away. However, the author emphasizes the cost of such a sacrifice, as Michael must “lock” his heart—his compassion—“away,” and he “die[s] inside a little” along with his professor (177).
Michael faces the greatest test to his principles when he must play a part in sacrificing his mentor and friend, Simon, for the Allied cause. Michael is horrified when Simon suggests Michael turn him in to the Nazis—a death sentence—so Michael can prove his patriotism and gain access to foil a crucial Nazi plot. Michael is even more shocked when his parents support the plan, and, still not willing to accept the situation, Michael desperately searches for “‘another way’” (233).
Michael realizes he must sacrifice his friend, no matter the cost, after an encounter with another lost friend, Fritz. Michael hoped he could convince Fritz to help him join the team without having to give up Simon, but instead Michael sees the Nazis have turned Fritz into a monster, a “bully” (237) full of “fierce cruelty” (236) like Hitler himself. Michael realizes that both he and Fritz are part of a generation forced by war “to grow up faster than our bodies,” to become “men” (238)—and for Michael, it’s time to “act like” a man (238). Unlike Fritz, who has chosen to exert power over others, Michael expresses his new maturity by turning Simon in for the chance to save many innocent people. Once he does so, Michael witnesses Simon making another sacrifice, as he deliberately provokes the SS into shooting him. Simon commits “suicide by Nazi” (150) in order to prevent himself from revealing secrets under torture; he lives and dies by his own belief that “[s]ometimes we have to sacrifice good people to win” (176).
Having witnessed Simon’s sacrifice and made difficult choices of his own, Michael ends the novel a much more mature young man than he began it. When he tells the scientist working on the atom bomb that “‘a good man’”—Simon—”‘died to save you’” (297), Michael understands the full meaning of his words. Michael himself has sacrificed—he’s given up friends, allowed some people to suffer and die so others can be saved, and risked his own life as well. Through young Michael’s journey, the author illustrates the high but necessary costs of war, and the challenges of navigating a morally ambiguous world—one in which people must sometimes do the “wrong” (176) thing in order to achieve a greater good.
The Role of Children in War
In an Author’s Note following the novel, Gratz observes that “in modern history, young people were perhaps never used so much to fight a war as they were in Nazi Germany during World War II” (305). While children in many countries participated in World War II by working in factories and on farms, clearing debris after bombs, and collecting materials, the Nazis crossed the line by sending teenage boys to fight—and die—on “the front lines” (305). As Gratz explains, once the Nazis lost nearly 300,000 men on the Russian front, they became “desperate” (305) enough to recruit boys and girls as young as 11, whether their role was in shooting down enemy planes or attacking Allied tanks with grenades. The horror of Hitler’s sacrifice of “an entire generation of young people to a mad dream of world domination” (307) clearly inspired Gratz, and the role of children in Nazi Germany becomes a key theme of the novel.
One of the most important developments in the opening of the novel is the Germans’ decision to draft 17-year-olds into the army—a choice Michael, with his access to Allied news, knows is due to the Germans’ disastrous defeat at Stalingrad. As a result of this change, 13-year-old German boys, including Michael, will become part of the senior Hitler Youth rather than the Jungvolk. Both Michael and his friend Fritz are selected to join the SRD, an exclusive and powerful branch of the Hitler Youth that Michael describes as “junior secret police officers” (43). As the novel continues, Michael witnesses how the very adult power granted to SRD members corrupts Fritz and his cohorts. Fritz leads a raid against other boys who question Nazi doctrine, turns his professor in to the Gestapo, and generally becomes “harder” and “meaner” (168) before Michael’s eyes.
While Fritz’s character arc shows the damaging psychological effects of giving young boys adult power and responsibilities, other characters question whether children should play an active role in war at all. Even when Michael is engaging in relatively minor spy missions, his father says he “‘d[oes]n’t like using Michael in this business’” (21), and when Michael progresses to more dangerous acts like rescuing a British pilot, Da insists a 13-year-old has “‘no business putting your life on the line for anything’” (66). Da’s attitude provides a strong contrast to the Nazis’ increasing willingness to sacrifice children’s safety, as Michael and his fellow Hitler Youth members are eventually tasked with manning the antiaircraft guns—a job that makes these young teens the perfect target, “just begging to be bombed” (189).
When Hitler himself speaks to the Hitler Youth, he frames these young people’s adult responsibilities as a positive development, telling them they are in “‘the heroic stage of youth’” and have the potential to become “‘man-god[s]’” (226). According to Hitler, becoming “‘man-god[s]’” requires “‘sacrifice: sacrifice of your personal freedom, sacrifice of your free time’” (226), and for many German boys, another sacrifice Hitler doesn’t mention—sacrifice of their very lives. Michael sees boys like Fritz buying into this philosophy without question, a choice that ultimately destroys them. When Michael tries and fails to find any compassion left within Fritz, he realizes that the Nazis have “made us into men”—into boys “whose hearts and minds and souls, had been forced to grow up faster than our bodies” (238). For Fritz, this means becoming cruel and eventually giving his life for the Nazi cause; Michael, however, makes a different choice.
In the final chapters of the novel, while Michael’s parents disapprove of the Nazis’ worsening treatment of children and plan to get Michael out of the country, they also allow Michael to act as an adult. When it comes to Michael’s most dangerous mission of all—turning in Simon and stopping an assassination—even his cautious Da agrees that Michael must risk his life, in order to keep the Germans from gaining more power. Here, the author suggests that wartime forces children to grow up more quickly even when they are surrounded by caring, protective adults. On the roof of a cable car, as Michael faces his fear of heights, challenges his former friend Fritz, and risks himself to save an important scientist from assassination, Michael truly becomes a man. He is no longer the “old,” immature Michael “who thought all this was a game” (287)—rather, he knows the war is “real” (287), and he will make adult choices and sacrifices to fight for the right side. While the Nazis force children into adult roles in a particularly cruel, harmful way, Michael’s path to maturity is a more positive one. Though he must grow up faster than he or his family might want, Michael comes out stronger on the other side.
The Power of Fear, and the Greater Power of Overcoming It
In the novel, major characters including Michael, Fritz, and Simon all overcome their fears in order to achieve their goals. For Michael and Simon, rising above a phobia is a positive trait that strengthens the two as friends as well as individuals; for Fritz, who is influenced by Nazi propaganda, the shift is not such a positive one. In fact, Nazi doctrine itself becomes an example of a different type of fear in the novel—fear that is used to intimidate and control the German people. Ultimately, however, the author focuses on the power of rising above fear, which allows characters like Michael and Simon to fight back against the Nazis.
Michael’s fear of heights becomes a major issue early on in the novel: First, he realizes he’ll have trouble joining the Hitler Youth—something he must do to continue spying on the Nazis—if he can’t pass the initiation by jumping into a pool from a great height. Secondly, Michael nearly falls to his death from a hayloft when his fear of heights leaves him unsteady. Fritz saves Michael from falling and promises to keep his phobia a secret—a significant pledge as, in Nazi Germany, any fear or other “weakness” is “punished” (53). In fact, Fritz’s promise helps to draw the two boys together, and their relationship grows stronger as Michael teaches small and scrawny Fritz to overcome his own fear and weakness by fighting back against bullies. Their bond is cemented when, at the Hitler Youth initiation, they box against each other—with Fritz using the fighting skills Michael taught him—and Fritz pushes Michael off the ledge into the pool, enabling him to pass the test. Though Michael knows he hasn’t yet “overcome” his fear—“it had all been Fritz” (140)—the two have taken steps to help each other grow stronger.
Michael also reveals his fear of heights to Simon whose support strengthens the friendship between the two. Simon accompanies Michael to the roof and shows him how “‘small steps’” (93) toward conquering his fear can lead to real progress. More importantly, however, Simon makes himself vulnerable by revealing his own phobia of birds and admitting he hasn’t completely conquered it—although, ironically, he has found the courage to become an air force pilot. In addition to fostering a meaningful trust and connection between Michael and himself, Simon impresses upon Michael that “a real fear, a real phobia, [is] a serious thing” (92). Michael’s fear of heights isn’t a problem he can solve with the snap of a finger; it’s something he needs great inner strength to overcome, and with the support of characters like Simon and, in the first half of the novel, Fritz, Michael begins to build this strength.
Even as Michael continues to practice with Simon, frequently visiting the roof to become more comfortable with heights, he is also fighting back against a different sort of fear: the unease and mistrust Nazis have spread throughout the German community. When the Hitler Youth attack Michael’s teacher and Michael calls the police, he is dismayed to see that “the police [are] scared” (175)—they know that “if we do or say anything, they’ll come for us next” (175). Michael realizes that on a broader level, this fear leading to inaction is “how Nazi Germany had gotten to be this way in the first place” (175)—German citizens have neglected to speak out against injustices, as they are frightened of becoming targets themselves. When Michael sees Hitler himself speak, he sees something in Hitler “that ma[kes] you want to appear perfect in his eyes” (225)—and he suspects this something is “fear” (225). Hitler has harnessed fear to control an entire population, including young Germans like Fritz.
In fact, Fritz’s character arc shows how one way of conquering fears—by making others fear you instead—can corrupt a person rather than truly strengthening them. Michael sees Fritz, who once ran from a fight, spearheading attacks against the Edelweiss Pirates and even his own teacher, and he realizes that Fritz has “become the bully himself. Just like little Hitler” (237). Of course, many other German youth have also learned from Hitler’s example and now use fear against others; Fritz’s transformation becomes a symbol of how the oppressive Nazi regime, with its culture of fear and distrust, destroys people’s better selves.
Michael and Simon, on the other hand, continue to fight back against a regime based on fear and intimidation—and in so doing, they must act with fearless courage. Simon hatches a plan to turn himself in to the Nazis and then purposefully gets himself shot—a brave act of self-sacrifice that ensures other innocent people will survive. Witnessing Simon’s act, Michael is “scared to be on [his] own” (247)—but instead of giving in to his fear, he finds the courage Simon would want him to possess, and goes on to foil the Nazis’ assassination plot. To do so, Michael must finally conquer his fear of heights, as he fights Fritz on the roof of a cable car above the Swiss Alps. Michael realizes he can’t allow his acrophobia to “paralyze” him any longer (287). Michael defeats Fritz, saves the scientist that Fritz attempted to assassinate, and overcomes his fear. In so doing, Michael—like Simon—has “fought for freedom” (303), for a world in which justice and compassion are stronger than intimidation and fear.
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