Flakhelfer to grenadier: memoir of a boy soldier, 1943-1945

On January 7 1943, the German Government, in order to free adult soldiers for frontline duty, ordered that all male students of secondary schools born in 1926 and 1927 be drafted into anti-air craft service in the homeland.

Most were called up at 16, but many were only 15. Schlesier wrote this memoir as an old man in response to a granddaughter's question about what he did in the war.

Perhaps, he also gives a voice to the silent generation of boys born in Germany in 1926 and 1927.

This generation has been silent because the horror it knew pales in comparison to the horror of the Holocaust.