content: I don't usually go to superlative praise, but this personal little journal is mesmerizing. Begun in 1914 by a fifteen year-old German schoolboy, it records his observations from the outbreak of the First World War through each major historical moment to the invasion of Poland in 1939. In his own innocent words he marks the major stages of German struggles from the start of war, the end of war, the Versailles Treaty to the advent of Hitler as Chancellor, the empowering of the Nazi Party, and to the Second World War. He shows his gradual maturing from an enthusiastic patriot to a jaded young flyer conscripted into a war he cannot personally support, yet cannot avoid.A genuine and amazing chronicle.