Farm boy. Franciscan Seminarian. Waffen SS Obersturmführer. American POW. Doctor in Vietnam

A private person, devoted to his career, Sepp rarely mentioned his past, even to his own family. When in the late 1960s US secret documents about WW II interrogations and illegal eavesdropping were leaked to him, he decided it was time to tell his eldest son Herwig the truth in a letter.

Sepp's letter forms the basis of this remarkable memoir. From an almost medieval childhood in an impoverished hill-village near Graz, proceeding to his years at a Franciscan seminary, contemplating God whilst Austria passed from Civil war to the orderly insanity of Nazi rule. And on to Sepp's own part in it:

explaining why he joined the Waffen SS in 1939, recounting his medical studies and his front-line service in the last brutal conflict of the Second World War, his growing horror at the realities of Nazism, and his reasons for surrendering to the U.S. military. As the war ends, his battles continue: to justify his actions to the Allies, to betray former comrades, to carve out a future in a country still run by Nazis.

This is a compelling and provocative true story, confronting readers, not only with the atrocities of the time, but with an insight into the ordinary people who took part in them and lived with the consequences.