Otfried Preußler’s artistic beginnings as an illustrator and author of poetry and prose date back to 1940. Although he did not grow up in Nazi Germany, his parents were national conservatives and his father publicly declared himself a National Socialist and anti-Semite after the so-called Anschluss of the Sudeten Germans in 1938. This shaped the young Otfried, as did his family’s widespread interest in art, culture, and literary writing. In several publications, he emphasised his close ties to his family and father. It is therefore not surprising that as a young man, Preußler, like many other Germans, was close to National Socialism. He became involved in the Hitler Youth and even wrote a book about the youth organisation’s harvesting operations, Erntelager Geyer [1944]. This article contextualises the novel within the spectrum of children’s and youth literature available at the time, shows the ideological themes that permeate it, and concludes with an assessment.