The Gestapo Jacques Delarue Analysis

“The Gestapo” by Jacques Delarue

September first, 1939, Germany invades Poland using a series of advanced Blitzkrieg attacks, this marks the beginning of World War Two. Even before this date, Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers Party began their long unnecessary attacks on the Untermensch, or undesirables, so they were called. The ultimate brainwashing campaign of Hitler and the German secret police, the Gestapo, led to a new development of hateful ideologies among the people; leading to the arrest and slaughter of millions of innocent beings. There were still some involved with the Gestapo who thought and knew that what they were doing was wrong, like Heinrich. In his non-fictional account of this event,“The Gestapo”(2008), Delarue
Heinrich and his fellow officers are motivated by their loyalty to their country, while at the same time Heinrich sees that his job, rounding up and arresting Jews, is wrong; he does not understand what will be accomplished by murdering innocent people and destroying family life. To Heinrich, Germany will ultimately end this war in a disastrous loss, “The Reich will eventually overstep its power, and other nations will begin to hear of the atrocities committed by this once great nation, leading to its imminent demise” (75). This is rather ironic, considering that Heinrich is very loyal to his nation, yet is willing to face the truths that Hitler does not want his followers to witness; this leads the reader to wonder what occurred in Heinrich’s mindset that changed his perspective on the teachings of his Führer, wandering off into the path of the unknown would have been very dangerous for a Nazi official at the time. We see that Heinrich is not afraid to do the right thing, by any
At first, it was hard for Heinrich to publicly admit to the other men that their actions are unjustifiable, one major event changed all of this. In Warsaw Poland, Heinrich is present at one of the Jewish round ups, “The utter image disgusted me, there was a woman with her children, encircled by the fierce helmets of their German occupier” (180). This event is also depicted in a famous picture one can find in most history textbooks. The Warsaw gathering, as it is sometimes known, was what changed Heinrich and let him to begin to preach the truth to his fellow officers, eventually costing him his life, but changing the lives of others. The effective use of characterization in the story helps us provide a picture of not only the physical aspects of their lives, but of the surroundings the main characters are faced with daily. These two literary topics are presented in a way such that the author can maximise on the detail without giving away too much, allowing for the reader to make their own well informed