Hansi, the Girl who Loved the Swastika

Plot

Hansi is a naïve young peasant girl in Sudetenland, who is mesmerized by the Führer and reading books. She wins a contest, organized by Adolf Hitler, that picks students for special training in National socialist schools in Prague. Her mother is delighted, but warns her in advance to "never forget Jesus Christ". As Hansi arrives in Prague, she is educated into antisemitism, but has doubts since Jesus himself was a Jew. Still, despite people informing her about the famine and horrors of the war she remains enthusiastic about Hitler.

Hansi is also in love with a German U-boat soldier named Rudy, but his parents disapprove of the marriage because she is just a peasant. Since she doesn't want to break him and his parents apart she breaks the relationship off. By now Hansi is so brainwashed that she condemns the Bible as "outdated" and only fit for "cowards and weaklings". As the war progresses Hansi and other people have to evacuate Prague because the Russians are on their way. Despite other people around her realizing that the war is a lost cause, Hansi remains confident in the Fuhrer. She is sent off to a Russian prisoner camp, where she and other girl have to work in slave labor and become victim of rape, except for Hansi who is too skinny to be taken advantage of by the men. Hansi and a girlfriend decide to escape to the American prisoner camps, despite her friend's objections about the USA. They manage to cross the border safely and escape Red Army soldiers trying to shoot refugees. Despite all the misery around her, Hansi still has her faith in Jesus. As Hansi reaches the American prisoner camp, she is amazed how good the American soldiers treat her. As the war is over and Germany lies in rubble Hansi decides to become a teacher.

Then it turns out Rudy is still alive. They become a couple again, but after a year they feel something "is missing from their lives". Hans re-introduces Hansi to the Bible, but she feels unsure whether she can still believe as she suffered through so much misery. Over the years she and Hans raise a family and become good Christians. They travel to the USA, where Hansi wonders whether all the materialism "obscured God's blessings" and made her students "troubled" and "unsure where to give their allegiance". As Hansi takes the flag salute, she is finally convinced about the goodness of the United States, when she hears the phrase "one nation under God", because "it's all right to love what God has blessed". Now Rudy and Hansi decide to promote the Bible to young people and explain the splendor of America's freedom.