In 1965, journalist Horst Krueger visited the Auschwitz trials in Frankfurt, where the trial of 22 former camp guards guilty of exterminating about a million people - old people, women and children - took place. This trial became an occasion for Kruger to remember his childhood and youth in 1930 -years, when the Nazi regime was gaining strength. He grew up in a quiet one-story suburb of Berlin, where they lived a measured, everyday life, where they kept the law and believed in God. He was a typical child of respectable, apolitical Germans who were never Nazis - but without whom the Nazis could not have committed their atrocities. Little by little, step by step, Hitler's regime is destroying the country, and with it, Kruger's own family.Originally published in 1966, Broken House is a surprising mixture of reportage, essays and memoirs, a painful yet courageous attempt to raise questions collective trauma, memory and responsibility. Skillfully written and bringing literary fame to the author, the book captures the “spirit of the times” and paints an impartial portrait of a generation during the Third Reich.