Figure 1.--This is the last known image of Adolf Hitler. He emerged frm his Berlin bunker briefly on his birthday to award condemnations to some of the Hitler Youth boys that were defending Berlin.

Armand briefly described his experiences in a television interview. Thus I only have a few notes I took down. Hitler like all German boys his age was inscribed into the Hitler Youth when he turned 10. He did not explain his pre-war experiences, except to describe that he was very enthusiastic about joining as a boy. He had two reasons. First was to belong and fit in. Second was the uniform. He desperately wanted to wear the uniform. Armand described his war experiences in more detail. but did describe his war time exploits. He performed bravely I think in a Volkstrum unit and with two other boys was awarded the iron cross. The screen showed boys in lederhosen reciving an award. I don't know it this was really film of Armand receiving his iron cross. In April 1945 he was in Belin and with many other German boys in units facing the Red Army. He performed well and with nine other boys were brought to see Hitler on his birthday. The films of this are quite well known with Hitler looking gaunt and a shell of himself walking down the line of boys patting them. Armand remembers Hitler patting him and saying "brave boy". Armand was disappointed at this because he wanted to be seen by the Führer as a man and a soldier. He still firmly believed in the need to fight and thought that the NAZI propaganda about super weapons was true. He was soon after told that he was to act as a courier to Hitler's bunker. That was virtually a death sentence as to move around in Berlin at that time exposed one to gun fire. He managed to survive, but was wounded. He was lucky, because few of the other boys in his unit did not. When the Americans arrived in Berlin he remembers being treated by a Jewish medic. He like many Germans at first thought the films of the death camps were fradulent, but gradually began to see how he and his friends were used by the NAZIs. He is particularly bitter by how children were used in the clothing months of the War when there was no hope of victory. This occurred all over Germany in the closing months of the War and was imortalized in the film Die Brucke.