Urchin at War: The Tale of a Leipzig Rascal and his Lutheran Granny under Bombs in Nazi Germany by Uwe Siemon-Netto

Abstract

Reviewed by: Urchin at War: The Tale of a Leipzig Rascal and his Lutheran Granny under Bombs in Nazi Germany by Uwe Siemon-Netto Robert Benne Urchin at War: The Tale of a Leipzig Rascal and his Lutheran Granny under Bombs in Nazi Germany. By Uwe Siemon-Netto. Irvine, California: 1517 Publishing, 2021. 286 pp. This remarkable memoir covers only the first eleven years of Uwe Siemon-Netto's life. Many Lutherans are aware of Siemon-Netto's work, The Fabricated Luther (1995), where he dispels the claims that Luther was to blame for the rise of Nazism. In that book he gave a few vignettes of his life as a child growing up in the war years. Happily, this engaging book, one of three planned, covers in colorful detail his early years in war-torn Leipzig. Given the daily bombing, it is a wonder that he lived to tell his story. The main story involves a rather distinguished anti-Nazi Lutheran family's struggle to survive the World War II years in Leipzig in the midst of daily bombings by the Allies, on the one hand, and intense Nazi pressures to conform, on the other. One word in the title—urchin—does indicate one truth illustrated richly: Uwe was a member of a kids' gang that did lots of rascally things, such as derailing trolleys. But there is quite another set of ingredients in his growing up. His father was a highly educated lawyer who was blinded in WWI. His mother was a budding concert singer. His grandmother, the central character in the book (besides the author), was a strong, well-educated, devout Lutheran, whose steady strength carried the whole family though those harrowing days. She was a real Mensch who calmly taught Luther's Catechism to Uwe as they took cover in the bomb shelters during the daily bombings. Uwe was brought up to appreciate Bach's music and Lutheran theology. Fine literature and art were part of the family's heritage. Uwe was hardly an ignorant street urchin, though he did have enough freedom to act like a naughty little boy. In their desire to protect Uwe from the bombs, his parents sent him to a country town to live with a Lutheran pastor and his family. What seemed like a good prospect turned out to be a nightmare of abuse and heresy. The pastor was an ardent Nazi who preached Nazi propaganda from the pulpit. He and his family ostracized and humiliated Uwe because he used French words and spoke high German. The memoir does depict vicious Nazis who affected their [End Page 243] lives, but spends more time on the many Germans—ordinary and extraordinary—who despised and resisted the Nazis in their own quiet yet dangerous ways. His experience of the war years is narrated by Siemon-Netto as he returns to visit and walk around his beloved Leipzig, now rebuilt and thriving. What is striking is his amazing recall of so many details of his early life. Certainly the dramatic—and frightening—experiences he had account for some of that recall. It is more likely, however, that he already possessed some of the gifts he needed to become the accomplished journalist that he became later in life. The book is a handsome and substantial one, replete with many pictures from that time. I found the book both edifying and entertaining. I eagerly await the sequels to his remarkable story. I recommend the book to all readers, but especially to Lutherans. Robert Benne Institute of Lutheran Theology Brookings, South Dakota Copyright © 2022 Johns Hopkins University Press and Lutheran Quarterly, Inc.