Hansi, the Girl who Loved the Swastika
Autobiographical book / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hansi: The Girl who Loved the Swastika is an autobiographical book by Czech-born American author Maria Anne Hirschmann.[1] Originally published as I Changed Gods in 1968,[2] it was more popularly released in 1973 as Hansi: The Girl Who Loved the Swastika, which according to her Amazon biography, sold more than 400,000 copies and was translated into several languages including Polish and Russian. Later editions are titled Hansi: The Girl who Left the Swastika. Her autobiography was also published as a comic book by Spire Christian Comics.
The book chronicles Hirschmann's early childhood as an orphan and her subsequent indoctrination by the Hitler Youth after the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia. At the end of World War II she fled from the Soviet-occupied territories to those controlled by the American army. Hirschmann describes her disillusionment with the Nazi ideology, which she calls brainwashing.[3] She comes to repudiate Nazism and develops a great appreciation for the American people. The book concluded with her immigration to the United States where she founded a Christian ministry.[4] Hirschmann has led Hansi Ministries since 1974 and released several more books discussing her youth and her religious beliefs.