‘The biggest piece, just for you, little Hetty,’ he smiles, holding out the sticky piece of caramel, and my heart flick-flacks wildly.

‘Thank you.’ I take it and sit down, my back resting against the wall.

I pop the caramel in my mouth and chew the sweet golden lump, but it’s large and hard and protrudes through my cheek, refusing to get smaller. Dribble escapes from the corner of my mouth and I quickly wipe it away with my sleeve.

‘Very fetching!’ Karl laughs.

Walter sees and begins laughing too. ‘Here, have another piece.’

I press my lips closed and shake my head, blushing red.

‘Hurrah!’ Karl laughs again. ‘A way to keep the girl quiet. Congratulations, my friend!’

A hard ball forms in my throat and I’m on my feet, bolting down the ladder before I allow myself to properly cry.

The boys’ laughter follows me all the way back to the house, and the cosy visions of my future life shatter like glass into a million, multicoloured fragments.

10 February 1934

Augustusplatz is packed. The vast square has been transformed into an unrecognisable film set. Up here, from our special platform, reserved for local dignitaries and their families, I feel like a film star, waiting to go out in front of the cameras.

I shiver, wrapping my fur stole closer around my neck. Powerful, blinding lights flood the expanse of the square and huge swastika flags hang from the tall buildings all around. Below our platform, a film crew slouch and smoke next to their tripods and cameras, stamping their feet and hugging their coats tighter as they wait for the main event. I look down at the pale, upturned faces of the crowd and the thousands of hands waving their tiny flags.

Mutti grips my hand tight. ‘It’s Karl’s turn,’ she breathes.

Karl steps forward, uniformed and serious. He grips the flag with his left hand, the right pointing to the sky, three fingers extended straight as an arrow towards heaven. His chin is raised and he stares straight ahead, unblinking.

‘Adolf Hitler,’ he chants without quiver, ‘you are our great Führer.

Thy name makes the enemy tremble.

Thy Third Reich comes, thy will alone is law upon the earth.

Let us hear daily thy voice and order us by thy leadership,

For we will obey to the end and even with our lives.

We praise thee! Hail Hitler!’

My throat closes and heat rises from somewhere deep in my soul. Karl, the dearest of all brothers in the world, dark-haired, dark-eyed and beautiful, is initiated in the Hitlerjugend. Hitler owns him now.

He accepts the coveted dagger and returns to the rest of his Schar. The next boy steps forward and repeats the oath. When the last new recruit has been initiated, the boys troop off stage and join the other squares of HJ boys at the front of the crowd.

The film crew check their cameras. A man comes onto the stage and tests the single microphone standing in the middle and a loud crackle comes from somewhere. We wait for the main event.