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Friedl

by William F. Kuhlke III with Marilyn Murray Willison

291 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #05-0737; ISBN 1-4120-5837-6; US$24.95, C$31.19, EUR20.27, £14.05

Friedl is the true story of what a non-Jewish girl, and other ordinary German citizens, endured in Germany under Hitler from his rise to power to the end of WWII.

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About the Book      About the Author      Excerpts      Catalogue Information

About the Book

Hundreds of books have been published about the atrocities that occurred in World War II. For decades readers have been overexposed -–inundated, if you will – to ONE aspect of Hitler’s impact. Now it is time to complete the story by telling the other side – the story of a non-Jewish girl and what she endured.

The fact that Adolf Hitler attempted to annihilate the Jewish race has been rightfully taught to subsequent generations to insure that something as heinous as The Holocaust is never repeated. Unfortunately, many people have mistakenly assumed that the entire German population was in line with the Nazi dogma and shared Hitler’s irrational hatred and diabolical solutions. They learned of the six million Jews annihilated but heard nothing of the six million non-Jews who were exterminated. Friedl tells another side of the story. Her true story shows many beliefs to be quite wrong.

Friedl’s story is divided into two parts, which helps the reader absorb the duality of her wartime experiences. Book One relates to her childhood years and her loving family, her musical development, her orders to leave her music and work in support of the war effort, her conscription into the Nazi Army and her many horrible wartime experiences far, far from home. In Book Two, Friedl begins her post-war journey home. We travel with her as far as the train tracks allow and then she begins to walk and hitchhike. She trades her farmhand skills and efforts for food and a place to sleep. As she reaches the American Army controlled border, she, as all returning Germans did, is detained until all formal paperwork is completed and entrance into Germany is authorized. This begins a six-week-plus adventure, not knowing if her family has survived, during which she is “adopted” by a German farm couple who had recently lost a daughter and a growing friendship with a German-speaking American Sergeant Jackson.

Finally her entrance into her homeland is authorized. Through her eyes we travel on the final leg of her journey to Frankfurt while viewing the horror, destruction, and shambles of the former “most perfectly preserved medieval city,” her beloved Frankfurt.

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About the Author

William Kuhlke is a retired Captain and Naval Aviator. He is a graduate of Marietta College and took postgraduate studies at the University of Texas. He had been writing for 7 years when he set aside his work on an aviation trilogy to write the biography of his stepmother, Friedl Hannewald Kuhlke. He lives and writes with his wife, Carol, a music teacher, in Stuart Florida where he is working on a sequel, tentatively entitled, Friedl: After the War and a non-fiction project entitled, Fossil Fuel Hoax, among others.

Marilyn Murray Willison, former Health & Fitness Editor (L.A. Times-Syndicate) and a journalist, London Sunday Times. She has written for numerous newspapers & magazines, is currently, Contributing Editor (Travel) of WE Magazine. Willison is the author of three non-fiction books, Diary of a Divorced Mother, Wyndon Books (1980) and Bantom Books (1981); Time Enough For Love, Bantom (1983) and The Self-Confidence Trick, Weidenfeld & Nickolson, UK (1988). The mother of two grown sons, Ms. Willison lives in West Palm Beach, Florida with her husband.

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Excerpts

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Catalogue Information

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