Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Urchin at War  By  cover art

Urchin at War

By: Uwe Siemon-Netto, Barbara Taylor Bradford - foreword
Narrated by: Charles Fox
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $13.96

Buy for $13.96

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

What was it like to grow up as an urban urchin under bombs in Nazi Germany? Did he have a real childhood? Did he play pranks on grownups, as young rascals do in normal times? Could he be shielded against Nationalist ideology? In Urchin at War, Uwe Siemon-Netto answers these questions in the affirmative with humour and drama.

The son of a lawyer blinded in World War I, he describes the parallel universe in which his bourgeois family lived in Leipzig. He vividly writes about the night when his home was bombed out. He had to guide his father over puddles of green flames caused by phosphor to his grandmother's apartment where he discovered hours later that—of all people—Frenchmen had rescued his mother from the flames. He tells the story of how he stole a tram after an air raid, and how his family buried his grand-aunt's right hand because that was the only body part rescuers found under the rubble after her house was hit by a blockbuster bomb.

Dr. Siemon-Netto, a journalist and academic, relates how in a country parsonage he was evacuated to, the pro-Nazi pastor beat him up for using French loan words and how he preached on Sundays that Hitler was Germany's saviour, prompting the courageous organist to whisper into the author's ears: "He's lying! He is betraying our Lord!"

When the Americans occupied Leipzig on Hitler's birthday in 1945, the author's family feasted on half an egg in mustard sauce each.

Urchin at War is an Ode to Omi, his funny and intrepid grandmother Clara Netto, a grande dame who in the air raid shelter taught him basic Lutheran doctrine so well that it led him to interrupt his stellar career as a reporter at age 50 to study theology in Chicago and earn a doctorate in Boston.

Urchin at War is the first volume in the 1517 Publishing's Urchin Series about the extraordinary life story of a kid and high school dropout who became a sought-after newsman, who covered the Kennedy assassination and the Vietnam War, and ended up being a Lutheran lay theologian.

©2020 New Reformation Publications (P)2023 1517 Publishing
activate_proofit_target_DT_control

More from the same

What listeners say about Urchin at War

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 1 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Urchin at War

A great story but the reader was dismal. Could not pronounce the German or Latin words correctly and his reading seemed labored. I would like to see a sequel from the author with a different reader

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!