The 2nd World War is over. The lives of four people, who have nothing in common, meet together in a destroyed Berlin.

IVAN TATAREV, a Soviet NKVD colonel - the Soviet Secret Political Police, later called KGB - is a cunning and ruthless social-climber. For him, executing Nazi prisoners is just a way to win a promotion to General. A Soviet gulag camp awaits him if he fails.
ALFRED HOTTE is a Wehrmacht Sub- lieutenant charged with having killed a Soviet prisoner. He has fought the war fully believing in the ideals the Germans had about the war. While realizing, as soon as he reached the war field, that these ideals are wrong, his sense of honor prevents him from accepting the defeat. But why have the Soviets artfully mounted false charges against him? And why is he refusing to collaborate with his counsel? What is he hiding?

MARIA is a young, combative, and proud Berliner war-widow. Hunger and his young son Berthold’s poor health place her before a dreadful dilemma. Just like many other German mothers in those days, she experienced first hand that when hunger comes in at the door, honor flies out of the window.

US Military Police captain SASHA JANKO serves as liaison between all the characters. He is the lawyer appointed by the Ally Command to defend Hotte from Tatarev’s charges. He will fall in love with Maria saving her from falling into the abyss of vice. He is a common sense man, who prefers relying on the force of reason than on the reason of force. His appointment might have been affected by his Russian origins. However, when he arrives in Berlin, he immediately realizes that due to his past he has become a scapegoat in the Allies’ interests.

A challenge with no holds barred involves two strong and motivated men on the background of the Soviet occupation of Berlin. A duel in which the moves of your rival are more and more difficult to anticipate. A plot full of coincidences involves all the characters, with insights in the mind of each of them and exposure of their ambitions, fears, and hidden truth.

The romance between a man and a woman signed by the war. The difficulties they have to overcome to forget about the horrors they have witnessed and begin a new life through love.

The story tells about an unusual aspect of these historic times: the complex relations between former allies, now rivals, and between former enemies who are now forced to collaborate, while they all share the same will to pursue their aim. The story, in which there is no actual winner, ends in quite an unexpected way.

The story highlights that in every conflict – no matter if it is a world war or a conflict between two people who hate (or love) each other - we are all likely to lose something: it might be our honor, love, or life.

Copyright 2010 Silvio Nacucchi
All Rights Reserved