Alfons Heck, 76; Hitler Youth Leader Later Repudiated Nazism and Wrote of His Experiences

Alfons Heck, whose experiences as a member of the Hitler Youth organization in Nazi Germany were the basis of two memoirs and an HBO documentary, has died. He was 76.

Heck died Tuesday of heart failure at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego, according to his wife, June.

In his books “A Child of Hitler: Germany in the Days When God Wore a Swastika” and “The Burden of Hitler’s Legacy,” Heck recounted his fascination with National Socialism from the time he entered Hitler Youth in 1938. He also told of his postwar repudiation of Hitler and his eventual coming to terms with the Holocaust.

A 1991 HBO documentary based on his books, “Heil Hitler! Confessions of a Hitler Youth,” used archival footage and Heck’s narration to explain how several million children were swept into the ranks of the youth group that is often referred to as having the most fanatical of Hitler’s followers.

Heck was raised by his grandparents in Wittlich, Germany, a small town near the border with Luxembourg. At 10, he was chosen to represent his school’s Hitler Youth organization at the Nuremberg Party Congress. Years later, he told a Times reporter that the event was a “jubilant Teutonic renaissance” that would “bind me to Adolf Hitler until the bitter end and for some time beyond.”

From 1939 to 1945, Heck rose rapidly in Hitler Youth, becoming the youngest boy to attain the top ranking as a glider pilot in the organization’s air wing. He wanted to join the Luftwaffe as a fighter pilot but was made a major general in Hitler Youth instead. In that capacity, he directed the activities of several thousand boys and girls in his district.

By age 16, with the war effort faltering, his duties were expanded to include running a small town on the Luxembourg border. In his writings, he recalls that he ordered an elderly teacher to be shot if he refused to let some Hitler Youth stay in his schoolhouse. The teacher relented and the order was rescinded. That same year, Hitler awarded Heck an Iron Cross for excellence of service.

After being captured by American troops in his hometown, Heck was eventually put on trial by French occupying forces and sentenced to a month of hard labor and restricted to the town limits for two years. He received a pass to attend the war crime trials in Nuremberg, and what he heard there helped change his views on Hitler and National Socialism.

On the promise of job opportunities, Heck moved to Victoria, Canada, in 1951. He met his wife and held a series of jobs, including lumberman, taxi driver and restaurant manager.

The couple moved to the United States in 1963, where Heck found a job driving for Greyhound. The couple settled in San Diego in 1970, but he was forced to retire from the bus company after suffering a heart attack in 1972.

When he was later unable to find work, he went into a period of depression. His wife suggested he take writing classes and urged him to tell his experiences during the war. “A Child of Hitler” was published in 1985 to good reviews and brisk sales.

Heck also contributed articles to San Diego-area newspapers, one of which was read by Helen Waterford, a survivor of Auschwitz. She contacted Heck and suggested they jointly give a series of lectures on the dangers of Nazism.

Over the next nine years, they offered their vastly different stories of life under Hitler to students at more than 150 colleges and universities. She died in 1996 at 86.

After her death, Heck continued to lecture, often showing the HBO documentary before he spoke.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by his twin brother, Rudolf Heck of Paris.