Revisiting a Children’s Classic: The Silent Third Reich in Sammy Drechsel’s Elf Freunde müßt ihr sein (1955)

<bd:p>This literary analysis of Sammy Drechsel’s 1955 children’s novel Elf Freunde müßt ihr sein focuses on the author’s construction of 1930s Germany as a Nazi-free realm. With a particular emphasis on Drechsel’s depiction of mass media, this article reveals the Third Reich hidden in this popular autobiographical story about football and friendship. It demonstrates how the novel utilizes football to depoliticize and disguise Hitler’s Germany and ultimately raises the question about the pedagogical opportunities that emerge from a work that is based on silence as a narrative strategy. </bd:p>