Alfons Heck: Alfons Heck, whose experiences as a member of the Hitler Youth organisation in Nazi Germany were the basis of two memoirs and a US TV documentary, has died in California. He was 76.
In his books, A Child of Hitler: Germany in the Days When God Wore a Swastika and The Burden of Hitler's Legacy, Heck recounted his fascination with National Socialism from the time he entered Hitler Youth in 1938. He also told of his postwar repudiation of Hitler and his eventual coming to terms with the Holocaust.
A 1991 HBO documentary based on his books, Heil Hitler! Confessions of a Hitler Youth, used archival footage and Heck's narration to explain how several million children were swept into the ranks of the youth group that often is referred to as having the most fanatical of Hitler's followers.
Raised by his grandparents, Heck grew up in Wittlich, Germany, a small town near the border with Luxembourg. At 10 he was chosen to represent his school's Hitler Youth organisation at the Nuremberg Party Congress.
Years later, he told a Los Angeles Times reporter that the event was a "jubilant Teutonic renaissance" that would "bind me to Adolf Hitler until the bitter end and for some time beyond".
From 1939 to 1945, Heck made a rapid rise in Hitler Youth, becoming the youngest boy to attain the top ranking as a glider pilot in the organisation's air wing.
He wanted to join the Luftwaffe as a fighter pilot but was made a major general in Hitler Youth instead. In that capacity, he directed the activities of several thousand boys and girls in his district.
By 16, with the war effort faltering, his duties were expanded to include running a small town on the Luxembourg border.
In his writings, he recalls that he ordered an elderly schoolteacher to be shot if he refused to let some Hitler Youth members stay in his home. The teacher relented and the order was rescinded. That same year, Hitler awarded Heck an Iron Cross for excellence of service.
After being captured by American troops in his home town, Heck eventually was put on trial by French occupying forces and sentenced to a month of hard labour and restricted to the town limits for two years.
He received a pass to attend the war crime trials in Nuremberg, and what he heard there helped change his views on Hitler and National Socialism.
On the promise of job opportunities, Heck moved to Victoria, British Columbia, in 1951. He met his wife June and held a series of jobs, including lumberman, taxi driver and restaurant manager.
The couple moved to the US in 1963, where Heck found a job driving a bus for Greyhound.
They settled in San Diego in 1970, but he was forced to retire from the bus company after suffering a heart attack in 1972.
When he was unable to find work later, Heck went into a period of depression.
His wife suggested he take writing classes and urged him to tell his experiences during the war.
A Child of Hitler was published in 1985 to good reviews and brisk sales. He later gave lectures on the dangers of Nazism with an Auschwitz survivor, Helen Waterford. In addition to his wife, he is survived by his twin brother, Rudolf Heck, of Paris.
Alfons Heck: born 1928; died April 19th, 2005