A BOOK written by a Sparsholt villager has been translated into German and published there.

Eddie Bush, 95, wrote Let’s Mention the War in 2016 to highlight the dangers the world faces. It was part autobiography of his childhood in pre-Nazi Austria and early adulthood in the UK, combined with a polemic and call for an end to what he sees as the twin problems of religion and nationalism.

He was born in Berlin and grew up in Austria, and a boy was in the Hitler Youth. With his family he came to the UK and has lived here ever since with a highly unusual dual perspective on both countries.

A translation has now been published in German by the Viennese Pilum Literatur Verlag, for sale in Germany and Austria.

Mr Bush told Belgarum: “My motivation to publish a German version can mainly be attributed to loyalty to the town and country where I spent my formative years. Although most of the people I knew in those days died many years ago, I have managed to keep in regular contact with some of their children and still visit them in addition to new friends acquired in connection with the book.

“For those who want to know about the message of “Let’s mention the war”, it was basically that Hitler was wrong. Although you may well say that we all know that, but this is not basically so. Hitler claimed that good and evil is associated with the genes, his prime example of evil being, of course, the Jewish gene, as opposed to the good Arian gene. This has indeed been refuted by the rest of the world, but only as far as reversing the evil gene as having been associated with the Germans instead of the Jews. Hitler’s genetic principle also persists in British culture to the extent that Royalty is historically qualified to represent our country solely because of its inherited genes.

“The final conclusion of the book is that the only way forward in international relations will be the adoption of the teaching of consensus ethics instead of religion in schools worldwide.

“An ambitious but in my opinion necessary step towards ensuring the survival of our species in the foreseeable future.”