Suddenly an Englishman By Louis Hagan
Category War Memoirs, Autobiography, True Stories
About Suddenly an Englishman
Celebrated journalist and author Louis Hagen escaped Nazi Germany, emigrating and starting a new life in England. But when war was declared in 1941, Louis found himself on the front lines in Arnhem, as well as billeted amongst the poverty of Kolkata. A story of riches to rags and back again, Suddenly an Englishman shows how luck and determination played a part in one Jewish German's life during and after the Nazi regime.
About Louis Hagan
Louis Hagen was a teenage German Jewish refugee, a British army glider pilot at Arnhem, a journalist, writer and children's film producer. He had a spectacular life. Born in Potsdam, near Berlin, he and his four siblings grew up in a Bauhaus-style villa built by their father, a banker with bohemian leanings. Louis was always known as "Büdi", a diminutive of brüderlein , or little brother. His blissful childhood was shattered in 1934 when, aged 15, he was thrown into Schloss Lichtenburg concentration camp. A housemaid had denounced him to her Nazi boyfriend after finding a postcard he had sent his sister with an anti-Nazi joke on it.