On paper, Fatih Akin’s poetic and elegantly spare “Amrum” demands something morally impossible from us: take interest in a 12-year-old member of the Hitler youth, as he cares for his mother in the last days of the World War II. While you’re at it, maybe even sympathize with him.

But as “Amrum” progresses in its patient, perceptive rhythm on the eponymous, majestically windswept German island, it becomes clear that the film isn’t looking for sympathy for the devil — that’d be an oversimplification of the purpose at the heart of Akin’s graceful and profound drama. (In other words, the offensively tone-deaf “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,” this is not.)

Co-written by octogenarian German filmmaker Hark Bohm, who was originally supposed to direct the project based on his own childhood memories, the project was ultimately passed to Akin. Under his direction, “Amrum” wants us to engage with the possibility that at such a young age, the film’s central character Nanning (superbly portrayed by impressive newcomer Jasper Billerbeck) is pretty much like any kid, and partly the unfortunate product of toxic brainwashing. True to his age, he has the ability to absorb both the good and the evil around him like a sponge.

What makes “Amrum” soul-stirring is the early realization early that had Nanning been brought up under different circumstances, by different kind of people other than his diehard Nazi parents, he would have been an ordinary child, doing good instead of brewing in the hateful thoughts that he’s been forced to adopt as is own. And that’s the kind of thing that only a certain kind of observant art could make one consider — there is a human at the root of any evil and the only way to disable it is knowing that origin.

The story unfolds in 1945, as Nanning lives with his mom Hille (Laura Tonke), aunt Ena (Lisa Hagmeister), and younger brother on the sparsely populated Amrum. Radio news announces the fall of Hitler. A shattered and very pregnant Hille gives birth around the same time, and refuses to eat anything other than white bread, butter and honey — simple but valuable foods that have been nearly depleted during the war.

Out of deep love and a sense of duty for his mother, Hille’s hunger and sadness propels Nanning to go on an epic, fable-like journey across the island to obtain these impossible goods: some flour from the chemist who might be keeping it as medicine, a little sugar from his grandfather, and so on. Along his quest, he helps a local fisherman trap a seal with the hopes of making a little money to buy other necessities. He hunts for rabbits and hangs out with his pal Hermann (Kian Köppke), raised by Akin regular Diane Kruger’s vocally Hitler-hating farmer Tessa. Hermann and Nanning exchange notes on Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick” in their excursions — perhaps Ahab is like Hitler, his sinking ship is Germany, and the whale is God.

As the Turkish-German auteur of masterworks like “Head-On” and “The Edge of Heaven,” Akin navigates Nanning’s selfless act of love and generosity with a big-hearted care. It’s his most understated yet vastly cinematic work to date, occasionally approaching the great staples of the coming-of-age genre. He has cited Rob Reiner’s “Stand by Me” as a personal inspiration, and it’s easy to see why. In “Amrum,” the childhood stakes of survival are high, the bullies are mean and kids are just kids, with the capacity of lending a helping hand to one another when they aren’t guided by the world’s evils, but by their own internal moral compass.

Thanks to the film’s splendid seaside setting and cinematographer Karl Walter Lindenlaub’s unassuming and dispassionate lensing, which lets the painterly locations speak for themselves without romanticizing them, “Amrum” feels classical in a throwback way, similar in its layered moral temperament to James Gray’s lyrical “Armageddon Time.” As such, it offers a taste of a near-extinct big-screen film about the innocence of childhood, its loss and endurance.

The ache that you might accumulate through “Amrum” lies in the dichotomy between that innocence and the era’s unspeakable sins. Can virtue persevere in such a time and place? Could good, decent instincts survive amid malicious acts? Akin is effortless in asking these questions, quietly and considerately. There are no grand moments, enormous revelations or manipulatively overpowering scores in his delicately constructed and produced film — it is as narratively straightforward as movies come. Though this timeless keeper is anything but toothless; very much like Nanning’s journey, “Amrum” itself is rooted in a shattering act of generosity.