Marc,
Fair comments! Some of the details are hazy. I will elaborate with the bit more that I know.
Ray did say the event occurred at night. (3 in the morning ish), and was very impromptu; in his words “It was like a photo-op”, “I just happened to be there”.
He also noted that when the allies first started bombing Berlin, the only air raid shelter was in (or around) the Reichstag. Now, this is not to say that he was in the Reichstag shelter during a bombing, or that this event even occurred there. I didn’t have enough to “clarify” all those details. But it’s possible this was near his home.
In fairness to Marc, I had my own “skepticism” at the time, with concerns surrounding the details with his father? How likely is it that a Wehrmacht Serving dad would have been at home during this time? Who knows…
I also didn’t ask if Ray was Hitler Youth. That’s assumed. As my experience meeting people who may have been HY members, is that they DON’T want people knowing, and usually deny anything to do with it. Ray was 9 or 10 years old in Berlin in 1945, it’s a garauntee.
For the record - Ray wasn’t advertising, I had to dig for about 45 minutes before I started getting somewhere!
My gut says the story is as true as it seems. A quick google image search of Hitler+Kids shows photos of him meeting children and hugging them etc. And we all know how the Fuhrer was about kids!
Of course… unless we launch a formal inquest! We’ll never know! I’ll probably get the chance to talk to Ray again in the near future.
Any specific questions I should ask?