Loyal To A Degree

Growing Up Under The Third Reich: Book 2

A World War II historical novel based on the author’s firsthand experiences growing up in Germany under the Third Reich.

A fourteen-year-old boy is ordered to save 122 children while the Third Reich collapses around him.

January 1945. As Soviet forces smash through the German defenses in Poland, fourteen-year-old Karl Veth receives the news he has dreaded. The children’s evacuation camp where he serves as assistant leader is directly in the path of the advancing Russian army.

With the camp commander too badly injured to lead the evacuation, headquarters places the responsibility on Karl’s shoulders. Armed with little more than determination, resourcefulness, and a plan that may or may not work, he must lead more than 120 boys across a war-torn landscape and somehow return them safely to Berlin before it’s too late.

Home offers no refuge.

Berlin is crumbling beneath relentless Allied bombing. Food is scarce, trust is dangerous, and every day brings the city closer to collapse. Reunited with his lifelong friend Harold, Karl discovers that the abandoned subway tunnels they once explored as adventurous boys have become a strategic military asset. Their intimate knowledge of the underground makes them valuable to the SS, who order the two teenagers to guide demolition teams through the tunnels beneath the city.

Caught between the advancing Russians, the ruthless demands of the SS, and a chain of command that is rapidly falling apart, Karl learns that survival often depends on knowing when to obey orders… and when to question them.

Raised from childhood to believe that loyalty to the Fatherland came above everything else, Karl now faces an impossible choice. As Berlin falls and the world he has always known collapses around him, he must decide what loyalty truly means, and how far he is willing to go to stay alive.

Loyal To A Degree is the gripping second novel in the Growing Up Under The Third Reich series. Based on the author’s firsthand experiences growing up in Nazi Germany, it offers a rare and deeply human perspective on the final months of World War II through the eyes of one of the boys who lived them.

As the Third Reich collapses around them, Karl and Harold soon discover that peace brings dangers of its own, and their greatest test is still to come. Continue the journey in Trust to a Degree.

Perfect for readers of The Book Thief, All the Light We Cannot See, Beneath a Scarlet Sky, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.