To Lose a War: Memories of a German Girl

By Regina Maria Shelton

Martin Blumenson refers to this book as a "sensitive, beautifully written personal memoir," and calls it a contribution to under­standing, "particularly to Americans who know little of how World War II and its immediate aftermath disrupted the lives of those who survived the defeat of Germany."

Vividly, humanly, Shelton tells her story from the point of view of a teen-age German girl, one who witnessed her country's surge to power and who felt the ignominy of both Germany and Ger­mans after the fall. She reaches a point during the war when "Sometimes the way we now live seems unreal, as if we were marionettes, with orders and permits and schedules attached to us instead of strings."

But after the defeat of Germany life gets considerably worse. The victorious Russians evict the natives from their homes. They sneer and leer at the women who must venture forth for food. In this defeated land "the nights become unbearably long; without any physical activity by day, sleep refuses to come. I yearn for sleep, be it temporary or eternal. Death is becoming a friend; the enemy has a new name now: Rape."

Then comes the dreaded order to evacuate all Germans from Lower Silesia: "How can a whole people be uprooted, disowned, tossed aside like useless flotsam--how? With the stroke of a pen, with a new line drawn on a map, we are sentenced to homelessness." Not knowing where they will be sent, they plod out into darkness and cold with the other Germans, their worldly goods reduced to what they can carry. Embittered, they are herded into vermin-infested freight cars, still unaware of their destination.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809310740
• ISBN13: 9780809310746
• Release Date: November 1982
• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 1.26 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.0" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Personal Memoir Filled With Reproaches.

"To Lose A War" by Regina Maria Shelton. Subtitled: "Memories Of a German Girl". Southern Illinois University Press, 1982.This is a very personal memoir of a young German girl, growing up during the Second World War. Born in 1927, Regina Maria was just reaching womanhood when the Soviet tanks were entering eastern Germany: Silesia, Pomerania, Prussia, etc. She begins the book with a brief story concerning visiting modern Communistic German in the 1980s, and, with one anecdote, she makes the point that the Communistic German border guards were as repressive, if not more so, than the old Nazi party members. Then, in the next chapter, she jumps to a nostalgic but wonderfully vivid description of Christmas Past, before the War: "Christmas began on the day that Mama melted the butter and honey in an enormous tin pan..." (p. 19). I have to tell my own children that Christmas Eve was once a fast day, with no eating until Midnight Mass, and I sense a kinship of the Past gone by with this writer, even though my Christmases were in NYC and hers in Germany.Her last chapter deals with what the Poles have done to her hometown, her childhood town. "My sentimental quest for my hometown is over. I have been walking in the streets of Klodzko, Poland. Glatz has ceased to exist save in my memories." (P. 218). She has written an interesting and complete personal history of living in a few decades in a town in Silesia, decades which saw the rise and fall of many.

Excellent telling of the story of an expellee from Silesia

This book is a story which could be true for thousands of Germans expelled from their homeland, Silesia. The account of the Russian invasion and Polish take-over moved me very much and gave me a more clear picture of what my parents went through. As the author goes back to her homeland to visit I felt a new compassion for the Polish population, who inherited this land, due to the author's insight and integrity. This both is well worth reading even if your personal history is not intertwined with Silesia.