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What's To Become Of The Boy by Heinrich Boll 1984 Military History Book WW2

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What's To Become Of The Boy by Heinrich Boll 1984 Military History Book WW2

What's To Become Of The Boy - or - Something To Do With Books
By Heinrich Boll
Published by Alfred A. Knopf: New York USA 1984 1st US Edition

"What's to Become of the Boy? Or: Something to Do with Books (1984) by Heinrich Böll is a brief, poignant memoir reflecting on the author's adolescence in Nazi Germany. Written decades after the events, Böll recalls his school years in Cologne from 1933 to 1937, a period when Hitler's regime was tightening its ideological grip on German youth. He portrays himself as a quiet, bookish boy, instinctively resistant to Nazi propaganda and alienated by the growing fanaticism around him. Rather than overt rebellion, his defiance took the form of indifference — a private retreat into literature and irony as a refuge from the conformity demanded by the state. Through sharp, understated humor and vivid detail, Böll captures both the absurdity and menace of daily life under dictatorship, showing how an emerging writer's sensibility was shaped by moral disgust and intellectual isolation.

The memoir's subtitle, Something to Do with Books, speaks to the redemptive role of reading in Böll's youth — a means of preserving individual thought when official truth was weaponized. His teachers, classmates, and family appear as complex figures, navigating survival and complicity in a world gone mad. Although slim in length, the work distills many of Böll's lifelong themes: resistance through conscience, the corruption of innocence, and the power of art against oppression. What's to Become of the Boy? serves as both a personal testament and a quietly devastating commentary on how a generation of young Germans was tested by tyranny, with only imagination and moral clarity as defense."

Light wear to dustjacket. Cover in very good order. Pages clean and well presented. No prior owner marks or inscriptions. Binding in good order with no loose pages. A nice copy in very good condition overall. Please study photos to further understand condition.

Size 19.5cm x 13.5cm x 1.25cm - 82 Pages

PRODUCT DETAILS


Condition: Very good
Binding: Cloth
Special Attributes: ["1st Edition", "Dust Jacket"]
Region: Europe
Subject: Military & War
Original/Facsimile: Original
Seller Notes: Light wear to dustjacket. Cover in very good order. Pages clean and well presented. No prior owner marks or inscriptions. Binding in good order with no loose pages. A nice copy in very good condition overall. Please study photos to further understand condition.
Language: English
Author: Heinrich Boll
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf: New York USA
Year Printed: 1984
Sub-subject: WW2 History