Children to a Degree

by Philip Eliot | Sep 22, 2026 | Historical Fiction | 0 comments

A World War II historical novel based on the author’s firsthand experiences growing up in Germany under the Third Reich.Berlin, Germany, 1940.Ten-year-old Karl Veth has an insatiable curiosity and a habit of asking questions. Unfortunately, he is growing up in Nazi Germany, where questioning authority can be dangerous.At school, Karl and his classmates are taught loyalty to Hitler above all else. Teachers encourage children to report parents, neighbors, and anyone who fails to embrace the Nazi regime. Like every German boy his age, Karl is required to join the Jungvolk, the junior branch of the Hitler Youth, where discipline, obedience, and propaganda become part of everyday life.But at home, Karl hears a very different perspective.His father, and his grandfather – a retired Prussian officer, quietly challenge the beliefs being forced upon an entire generation. Rather than telling Karl what to think, they teach him how to think, encouraging him to question, reason, and draw his own conclusions, even when those conclusions could place him in danger.As war closes in and Germany changes around him, Karl must decide which lessons to believe. The choices he makes as a young boy will shape the man he becomes and determine his path through one of history’s darkest chapters.Based on the author’s own experiences growing up under the Third Reich, Children To A Degree offers a rare and deeply personal look at life inside Nazi Germany through the eyes of a boy learning that the greatest act of courage is often simply thinking for yourself.Continue Karl’s extraordinary journey in Loyal To A Degree, where the fall of Berlin forces him to confront impossible choices between duty, survival, and consciencePerfect for readers of The Book Thief, All the Light We Cannot See, Beneath a Scarlet Sky, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.