Almost half a century ago, a young reporter from Germany arrived in still-glamorous Saigon to cover the Vietnam War over a period of five years. In this memoir he now tells the story of how he fell in love with the Vietnamese people. He praises the beauty, elegance and feistiness of their women. He describes blood-curdling Communist atrocities and fierce combat scenes he had witnessed. He introduces a striking array of characters: heroes, villains, statesmen and spooks, hilarious eccentrics, street urchins and orphans herding water buffalos. He shows how professional malpractice by U.S. media stars such as Walter Cronkite turned the military victory of American and South Vietnamese forces during the 1968 Tet Offensive into a political defeat. He mourns the countless innocent victims of the Communist conquest of South Vietnam, which was the grim consequence of its abandonment by the United States. Thus, he argues, the wrong side won. Finally, with the eyes on Afghanistan, he poses a harrowing question: Are democratic societies with their proclivity for self-indulgence politically and psychologically equipped to win a protracted war against a totalitarian foe?
Many Vietnam veterans felt and, in fact, still feel rejected by their God and the church and betrayed by their nation and even their families. Using themes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology, Uwe Siemon-Netto explores the veterans' situation and argues for God's acquittal of the charge of abandoning the veterans during and after the war.
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.
Starting where the first volume leaves off, we see the author enter his teenage years and the adventures of journalism. The book takes us from the end of 1947 to about 1961 and the building of the wall between East and West Germany.World War II is over. The author' s parents are divorced. He lives in the Soviet zone of bombed-out Germany. Every morning, his Communist teacher urges his pupils to beat up the three Christian boys in his class. Uwe Siemon-Netto is one of them. He flees to the West and is separated from his granny, who had shielded him against Nazi ideology and taught him to be a Christian. He winds up in a boarding school with a bizarre religion.In Urchin on the Beat, he is still a rascal who tries to knock off nuns' headgear with snowballs to find out if they are hairless and founds a gang of licorice thieves. He leaves the boarding school when his mother escapes from East Germany and settles in the gritty industrial city of Hagen. But he doesn' t live with her. Instead, he is housed in a freezing attic room without water. He works in a department store and a textile mill to supplement the measly stipend his father pays him. He visits the municipal modern art museum, falls in love with contemporary art, and begins writing short items about it for a local newspaper. After this, he dropped out of school and went to England and then to France to improve his language skills. Then, his fate takes a happy turn: He trains as a journalist. Two years later, he is a desk editor and reporter at the Associated Press in Frankfurt. Thus begins his stellar career as a foreign correspondent covering world affairs.
Many Vietnam veterans felt and, in fact, still feel rejected by their God and the church and betrayed by their nation and even their families. Using themes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology, Uwe Siemon-Netto explores the veterans' situation and argues for God's acquittal of the charge of abandoning the veterans during and after the war.
Starting where the first volume leaves off, we see the author enter his teenage years and the adventures of journalism. The book takes us from the end of 1947 to about 1961 and the building of the wall between East and West Germany.World War II is over. The author' s parents are divorced. He lives in the Soviet zone of bombed-out Germany. Every morning, his Communist teacher urges his pupils to beat up the three Christian boys in his class. Uwe Siemon-Netto is one of them. He flees to the West and is separated from his granny, who had shielded him against Nazi ideology and taught him to be a Christian. He winds up in a boarding school with a bizarre religion.In Urchin on the Beat, he is still a rascal who tries to knock off nuns' headgear with snowballs to find out if they are hairless and founds a gang of licorice thieves. He leaves the boarding school when his mother escapes from East Germany and settles in the gritty industrial city of Hagen. But he doesn' t live with her. Instead, he is housed in a freezing attic room without water. He works in a department store and a textile mill to supplement the measly stipend his father pays him. He visits the municipal modern art museum, falls in love with contemporary art, and begins writing short items about it for a local newspaper. After this, he dropped out of school and went to England and then to France to improve his language skills. Then, his fate takes a happy turn: He trains as a journalist. Two years later, he is a desk editor and reporter at the Associated Press in Frankfurt. Thus begins his stellar career as a foreign correspondent covering world affairs.
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.
Almost half a century ago, a young reporter from Germany arrived in still-glamorous Saigon to cover the Vietnam War over a period of five years. In this memoir he now tells the story of how he fell in love with the Vietnamese people. He praises the beauty, elegance and feistiness of their women. He describes blood-curdling Communist atrocities and fierce combat scenes he had witnessed. He introduces a striking array of characters: heroes, villains, statesmen and spooks, hilarious eccentrics, street urchins and orphans herding water buffalos. He shows how professional malpractice by U.S. media stars such as Walter Cronkite turned the military victory of American and South Vietnamese forces during the 1968 Tet Offensive into a political defeat. He mourns the countless innocent victims of the Communist conquest of South Vietnam, which was the grim consequence of its abandonment by the United States. Thus, he argues, the wrong side won. Finally, with the eyes on Afghanistan, he poses a harrowing question: Are democratic societies with their proclivity for self-indulgence politically and psychologically equipped to win a protracted war against a totalitarian foe?
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