Mother Night Chapter 7 Summary

Autobiography…

  • Here are the facts.
  • Campbell was born in Schenectady, New York in February, a couple days after Valentine's Day, in 1912.
  • Dude's dad was an engineer for GE who traveled a lot and looked at a picture book of WWI in his spare time.
  • Campbell was not allowed to look at this book. He did, anyway—a lot. It was gruesome, full of bodies, pain, and blood.
  • Campbell's mom played the cello and was kind of morbid.
  • One time, Mom poured rubbing alcohol into a bowl, added salt, turned off the lights, and lit it on fire. Mother and son looked like corpses in the yellow light.
  • Mom never really spoke to Campbell again after that.
  • The fam all moved to Berlin, Germany, when Campbell's dad got transferred for work.
  • Campbell grew up and married the chief of police's daughter, Helga.
  • Dude's parents left Germany when the war started in 1939. Campbell stayed.
  • Campbell became a propagandist.
  • Campbell was caught by Lieutenant Bernard B. O'Hare of the American Third Army. This was the same team that discovered the death camp at Ohrdruf.
  • The Third Army took Campbell to Ohrdruf to look at the carnage. There's a photo of Campbell looking up at the German guards hanged at the death camp.