What Our Fathers Did A Nazi Legacy Summary

The beginning of World War II was a life-altering event for many people around the world, both children and adults alike. This was a time of hatred, propaganda, and murder. Hitler and his Nazi party spread the words of hate against a marginalized group in society. Quickly after, propaganda brainwashed the minds of the people, and which led them to exile the “non-aryan” race, which largely consisted of Jewish people. This resulted in millions of deaths, both civilian and military. Concentration camps were human recycling factories. Nazi soldiers would kill Jews by the masses and dispose of the bodies without a second thought. Women, children and families were gassed and burned without any regard for the fact they were human beings. Records show

However, children of Nazi soldiers were a large group of children who were affected by the war, but in a very different way. They were sheltered from what was happening in the war. They were taught to believe that Hitler was an honorable, smart man with a goal to make Germany better. After the end of World War II, children of Nazi soldiers knew what type of politics and hatred their parents had supported and contributed to. “Imagine what it must be like to grow up as a child of a mass murderer” (Evans, 2016). This was the beginning lines of the documentary, What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy. Filmmaker David Evans interviews two men, Niklas Frank and Horst von Wachter, who were the sons of two senior-ranking Nazi officials. These two men, Hans Frank and Otto von Wachter, were responsible for the torture and death of thousands of Jewish people during World War II. Niklas describes his childhood relatively normal. He would go on vacations with his family, including his father. He claims that he lived, what he thought was, an average life. Horst said he was mainly raised by his nanny because his father was constantly speaking to stadiums of people for Hitler. Horst even mentions that he knows his father loved Hitler more than his own family, so he never felt very close with his parents. Both men would describe their lives growing up during the war as pampered and enjoyable. They went to school and received an education, while in the girls their same age would learn about how to cook and take care of babies. Later in the documentary, Niklas says he is ashamed and disgusted with the people who spread the ideology in Europe. He continues to say he is at peace with what his father did, despite the horrific murders, because it reminds him “what happens when democracy and humanity perish from the Earth”. One of the final scenes in