Child abuse survivor and author Dave Pelzer wrote "Childhood should be carefree, playing in the sun; not a living nightmare in the darkness of the soul."[1] In Nazi Berlin, childhood for nearly every individual growing up under the influence of the Third Reich was far from carefree. While the narrative of young soldiers being sent to the front lines of the war by both Allied and Axis forces in the brutal conditions of the Second World War has been long understood and shared amongst both academics and popular culture, little thought has been spared for the childhoods and roles of youth that remained in Germany under Nazi control. Common knowledge of the Nazi Lebensborn project and Nazi racial policy has given popular culture a working understanding of Nazi racial policy and anti-Semitism. German hyper-nationalism was one of the most prominent factors in decision making process of the Nazi party, and shaped the beliefs of hundreds of thousands people who supported, or whose parents supported the Nazi Party. But what of those who did not fit the criteria of what a proper Aryan, German man was expected to be, and would never be able to grow into one? How did these children experience growing up in Berlin as undesirable to the Nazi Party? The walking tour "Cruel Childhood" focuses on this question, by stopping at six prominent locations that highlight the experiences of the children of German minorities as they grew up in a state that did not want them. Through examining the experiences of Jewish, French, and Catholic children in order to understand the ways racial and religious minorities were impacted the ethno-nationalistic ideals of the Nazi Regime. Historical events such as the Kindertransport, the Holocaust, and the Hitler Youth Rallies of the Nazi Party allow insight into the type of world that youth in Berlin were surviving, and how these events shaped the rest of their lives. Furthermore, this tour will examine the roles of two very important groups: those that grew up within and supporting the Nazi Party, and those that opposed it, with the aims to understand all perspectives of the ways that the Nazi Regime overshadowed every aspect of the childhoods of children in Berlin, and how the children themselves responded. This tour intends to give a broad understanding of both the topic and its historiographical situation in order to fully contextualize the experiences of youth living under the Nazi Regime in Berlin.

[1] Dave Pelzer, A Child Called "It" (Deerfield Beach, Florida: Health Communications Inc., 1995), 154.

On this tour, we will visit the following sites:

Friedrichstraße

Dorothea-Schlegel-Platz

Gendarmenmarkt

St. Hedwig's Cathedral

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

The Topography of Terror

This tour aims to explore the relationship between minorities and the ruling Nazi Party during the years of 1933-1945. Furthermore, it aims to examine how these relationships affected the youth being raised under the control of the Nazi Party, and the ways that Nazi Party undoubtedly shaped a generation of Germans through various means. Through visiting six different sites that all touch on a different aspects of German youth, this tour intends to give a broad understanding of the conditions of childhood in Berlin, and more broadly speaking Germany under the Third Reich.