Ruined by the Reich

the long version

"This is the story of the Weiss family in East Prussia from World War I to the end of World War II, told from the point of view not of the victors but of the vanquished. Beginning with the good citizenship trap Hitler set for law-abiding families, the book describes how Germany first prospered and then fell to ruin with the Third Reich. The people traded their freedoms for a national security that quickly turned to tyranny, with swift consequences for "disobedience." "Like Christel's brothers (soldiers and members of Hitler's Youth), propaganda-fed children all over the Reich believed the highly idealized depiction of their roles and of their nation's victims."--Jacket.