Youth without God. Odon von Horvath

This book is about teenagers, about the growing up pre-war pro-Nazi German youth, for whom the concepts of justice, honesty, and truth are absolutely distorted and completely distorted. These young people are blinded by “Nazi ideas” and do not realize that they pose a threat to those around them and to all of humanity. Their parents are with them in this – they easily allow themselves, their world, and their thoughts to be taken over by the Nazi dictatorship and its propaganda formulations.

However, there is still a confrontation in the novel. The culmination is the murder of another student by one student and the accusation of a third for this. The teacher, who, through his silence, is also guilty of the murder of the schoolboy, still dares to speak the truth and defend it. After all, life without truth has no meaning anyway.

God in Odion von Horwath’s novel is the personification of truth, justice, and a tolerant attitude towards others. Nazi youth live and grow up without the truth, easily blinded by lies and deception, by National Socialist propaganda, which is constantly echoed in loud slogans and appeals from the radio, the main mass media at the time.