Kirjahaku

More than six decades ago, thousands of Germans were put to death for their attempt to overthrow the National Socialist tyranny. Among them were Lutherans Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Carl Friedrich Goerdeler. This study will show that both men acted in accordance with Martin Luther's teachings on resisting secular authority with moral courage and fortitude-in contrast with modern myths about Luther's influence on the Third Reich.

Many Vietnam veterans felt and, in fact, still feel rejected by their God and the church and betrayed by their nation and even their families. Using themes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology, Uwe Siemon-Netto explores the veterans' situation and argues for God's acquittal of the charge of abandoning the veterans during and after the war. ""This book provides an invaluable insight into the dynamics of the Vietnam veteran who returned to a nation torn by strife over the validity of his service. I recommend this to all who work with veterans, to the Vietnam veterans and their families, to chaplains, and, above all, to American clergy so that they can gain greater insight into what is going on in the mind and soul of the parishioner who carries the experience of Vietnam with him."" - Herbert B. Cleveland, Director of Chaplains, Department of Veterans Affairs ""A profound and readable theological analysis of the veterans' religious plight. We've already learned much of the emotional problems, economic disadvantages, and political struggles of the vets. Now Siemon-Netto guides us through their sufferings in terms of a theology of the cross. He draws upon his experience in Vietnam, his thorough acquaintance with Bonhoeffer, and his own original scholarship to guide us on an enriching spiritual journey. - William P. Mahedy, author of Out of the Night: The Spiritual Journey of Vietnam Veterans Uwe Siemon-Netto was a journalist in Vietnam and covered the peace movement in the United States. He has served as a chaplain and therapist with veterans.

What was it like to grow up as an urban urchin under bombs in Nazi Germany? Did he have a real childhood? Did he play pranks on grownups, as young rascals do in normal times? Could he be shielded against Nationalist ideology? In Urchin at War, Uwe Siemon-Netto answers these questions in the affirmative with humour and drama. The son of a lawyer blinded in World War I, he describes the parallel universe in which his bourgeois family lived in Leipzig. He vividly writes about the night when his home was bombed out. He had to guide his father over puddles of green flames caused by phosphor to his grandmother's apartment where he discovered hours later that — of all people — Frenchmen had rescued his mother from the flames. He tells the story of how he stole a tram after an air raid, and how his family buried his grand-aunt's right hand because that was the only body part rescuers found under the rubble after her house was hit by a blockbuster bomb. Dr. Siemon-Netto, a journalist and academic, relates how in a country parsonage he was evacuated to, the pro-Nazi pastor beat him up for using French loan words and how he preached on Sundays that Hitler was Germany's saviour, prompting the courageous organist to whisper into the author's ears: “He's lying! He is betraying our Lord!” When the Americans occupied Leipzig on Hitler's birthday in 1945, the author's family feasted on half an egg in mustard sauce each.Urchin at War is an Ode to Omi, his funny and intrepid grandmother Clara Netto, a grande dame who in the air raid shelter taught him basic Lutheran doctrine so well that it led him to interrupt his stellar career as a reporter at age 50 to study theology in Chicago and earn a doctorate in Boston.Urchin at War is the first volume in the 1517 Publishing's Urchin Series about the extraordinary life story of a kid and high school dropout who became a sought-after newsman, who covered the Kennedy assassination and the Vietnam War, and ended up being a Lutheran lay theologian.

Starting where the first volume leaves off, we see the author enter his teenage years and the adventures of journalism. The book takes us from the end of 1947 to about 1961 and the building of the wall between East and West Germany.World War II is over. The author’ s parents are divorced. He lives in the Soviet zone of bombed-out Germany. Every morning, his Communist teacher urges his pupils to beat up the three Christian boys in his class. Uwe Siemon-Netto is one of them. He flees to the West and is separated from his granny, who had shielded him against Nazi ideology and taught him to be a Christian. He winds up in a boarding school with a bizarre religion.In Urchin on the Beat, he is still a rascal who tries to knock off nuns’ headgear with snowballs to find out if they are hairless and founds a gang of licorice thieves. He leaves the boarding school when his mother escapes from East Germany and settles in the gritty industrial city of Hagen. But he doesn’ t live with her. Instead, he is housed in a freezing attic room without water. He works in a department store and a textile mill to supplement the measly stipend his father pays him. He visits the municipal modern art museum, falls in love with contemporary art, and begins writing short items about it for a local newspaper. After this, he dropped out of school and went to England and then to France to improve his language skills. Then, his fate takes a happy turn: He trains as a journalist. Two years later, he is a desk editor and reporter at the Associated Press in Frankfurt. Thus begins his stellar career as a foreign correspondent covering world affairs.