Twelve Flags, One Life

Klaus Kolb determinedly grew to a teen in an eastern province of Germany during the rise of the Nazi party and World War II. In this first book of his life's memoir, Kolb tells his stories of childhood pranks, survival and substitution, hunger, and terrifying night runs to airless air raid shelters. Raised by a brilliant but demanding father and loving step-mother, he was secreted west in a cramped truck to avoid the oncoming victorious Red Army. When the teen finally returned home, he was interrogated by the Communist Party. He was released, but his father wasn't as lucky. Now Klaus is the male head of his household in a broken nation. You will burst out laughing, sniffle as you hold back tears and completely empathize with Klaus' stories of climbing a dung pile to play, searching for bullets to start fires that got out of control, and thinking he make Germany lose the war by wishing it to avoid attending the Adolph Hitler School.