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Who is Fury, and why do you think this is an effective name for this person in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne?

In Chapter Eleven, "Fury" is the mispronunciation by Bruno for the Führer, Adolf Hitler. This misnomer is effective because Hitler certainly put Germany into a fury, and he acted as a god of war and vengeance much like the Furies of Mythology.


Hitler emerged out of the anger of the German people for the crushing punishment it received after World War I as Germany was held responsible for this war. After the stringent demands of the Treaty of Versailles, the German economy was in a shambles because of the reparations demanded of it. The only thing to do as the economic situation of the country worsened was to print money; so, printing presses ran around the clock. But, by 1923 the situation became absolutely desperate and there was run-away inflation.


According to British historian Sir Arthur Bryant, who wrote in his Unfinished Victory:



It was the Jews with their international affiliations and their flair for finance who were best able to seize...opportunities. They did so with such effect that, even in November 1938, after five years of anti-Semitic legislation and persecution, they still owned...something like a third of the real property in the Reich....To those who had lost their all, this bewildering transfer seemed a monstrous injustice....they saw [everything] pass into the hands of strangers....



Furthermore, the Jews had reached prominent positions in politics, business and the professions such as medicine and law. The banks, including the Reichsbank and large private ones, were controlled by them.


Hitler tapped into the anger and resentment of the German people over their economic woes and found the scapegoat on whom to blame them, generating from the burning embers of the Germans' resentment for the Jews a fury of hatred. And, much like the mythological Furies, Hitler ignited the hearts of the German people and unified them furiously in a chauvinistic cause to bring their country back to power and to the ownership of the Germans. 


That Hitler was considered a god is evinced in some of the mottoes of Nazism: Mein Führer ist mein Gott! (My Fuhrer is my God). 

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