In Teenage, portraits of a four emblematic youth from history are woven into the larger narrative about the emergence of youth culture. Melita Maschmann, who joined the Hitler Youth in 1930s Germany, is one them.
Melita’s scenes in the film (she is portrayed by Ivy Blackshire, pictured above) are inspired directly by a primary source: her own memoir. In Account Rendered, Melita looks back on her Hitler Youth days with regretful hindsight, and with the goal of explaining how she became swept up into the movement. It was published 50 years ago and The New Yorker‘s Helen Epstein wrote this piece to commemorate the highly controversial and influential book. Epstein digs into why Melita wrote Account Rendered (or Fazit in German), the Jewish childhood friend she may have written it for, and the impact its publication made on the public and on Melita herself.