Mutti brings him a steaming cup of hot, frothy chocolate. He kisses her as he takes the cup. ‘Just as I like it,’ he says.

‘So what’s happened?’ Mutti asks once we’ve all had a drink. ‘How come you are back?’

‘I don’t know all the details,’ Vati says. ‘They don’t exactly share state secrets with us, but it seems there’s been a deal of some sort.’

‘What kind of deal?’ Otto asks.

‘One made by the politicians and lawmakers,’ Vati says. ‘Hitler has signed an agreement with Britain, Italy and France promising that he’ll leave Czechoslovakia alone.’

‘Leave us alone?’ Mutti asks.

‘They’ve said Hitler can have some territory to the west as long as he promises not to invade the rest of Czechoslovakia.’

‘And he agreed to that?’ Mutti asks.

‘He did!’ Vati says. He smiles. ‘It seems war has been avoided and we’ve all been sent home!’

I don’t understand most of what Vati is saying. I understand the last bit though, and that’s all I need to know.

Vati is home, and our family is back together again. Whatever danger there was, it’s over.

Otto and I are allowed to stay up late to celebrate. Just as well, as I’m far too happy to go to sleep any time soon.

MAX

The best thing about life in Munich was, without doubt, Max’s new circle of friends. The Hitler Youth had changed his life. In fact, it would have been fair to say the Hitler Youth was his life.

Gone were the days when Max would huddle with his two friends on the fringes of everything, playing tag in the park, making up their own games, laughing at their own jokes.

He was part of something much bigger than that now. No, not just part of something; he was at the centre of things. Max lived for the weekends when he would dress in his crisp new uniform and join the boys in the square. They would march in rows, as if they were a single mechanism. Their ‘Heil Hitler!’ salutes were shouted in perfect unison.

They weren’t just a group of friends. They weren’t just a team. They were a unit with one voice, one mind, one aim: to be perfect Nazis.

At age ten, Max was in the junior section, called the German Youth. He couldn’t join the senior ranks of the Hitler Youth till he was fourteen, but Max didn’t care. Fourteen was still such a long time away, he didn’t even think about it. Being in the German Youth still meant he felt part of something bigger, something important, and his friends felt the same way.

After marching, the boys would go to the Hofgarten park to train. They ran relay races, played tug-o-war, learned how to light campfires and make knives from twigs.