Ritter, W. Verlorene Jahre (1939-1949). Mit dem Abitur ins Leben

On the surface, this is a sober account of experiences that does not want to gloss over anything. The question of guilt and responsibility is largely left to the reader, whom the author leads through numerous European countries as well as Libya and Egypt as a soldier between 1939 and 1949. The time spent as a Soviet prisoner of war takes up almost as much space as his deployment on various fronts in the Second World War.

Walter Ritter had actually wanted to become an elementary school teacher when he graduated from high school in 1939. The world he could have opened up for himself after 1939 with his school education no longer existed in 1949 - only the question of his own responsibility and that of his teachers and military superiors stood in the room, as well as the question of why, of all people, one had been so much luckier than others. A year before his death in 2014, Walter Ritter consulted his Abitur files. His former school is now a modern and cosmopolitan grammar school that takes a critical look at its history. Under the guidance of Dr. Alexander Ritter, the nephew of the late author, pupils are now searching for traces in order to critically examine role models and educational ideals and answer questions for themselves to which Walter Ritter did not find an answer during his lifetime.