As Germany enters its last war year and precious resources, especially available and combat-ready men, have grown scarce, Hitler decides it is time to exploit Germany's teens. Unlike typical battle stories, this collection of true accounts follows four fifteen- to seventeen-year old boys as they struggle with the ever-crumbling Reich, trying to stay alive against the odds.




- Visiting his brother, Hans, who serves as a radioman near the Dutch boarder, Gunter narrowly escapes the oncoming artillery fire of Allied troops...

- Gunter and his best friend, Helmut, are drafted in the spring of 1945. Instead of following orders, they decide to hide, spending seven weeks on the run...

- Arthur still believes, Germany is winning, when American troops march into his youth camp in late April 1945. He and his classmates are arrested and shipped to Dachau, the just liberated death camp. But being a prisoner is only the beginning of his ordeal...

- When the war ends in May 1945, Hans does not return. Gunter and his mother fear the worst. Until July, when a skeletal visitor appears at their door...




Beginning in the fall of 1944 and ending in the summer of 1945, this collection contains 47 Days and A Lightness in My Soul, two novellas-also published separately-as well as two short stories.