Interesting book in that it looks at war from the perspective of a boy growing up in Germany during the rise of Hitler and the Second World war. The book opens with Dieter and his sister sitting in the dark next to a burning tank trying to keep a Canadian soldier with a head injury alive by talking about how they got there. Pulls no punches with Dieter having an older brother Reinhard in the SS who he idolises despite his father having completely opposite beliefs to Hitler. Reinhard espouses the Aryan race superiority notion and Dieter watches Jews in his home town be persecuted or disappear. He joins the Hitler Youth and as the war progresses, finds himself fighting alongside his brother as the Germans call up boys to reinforce their defences. But his brother is a changed man from the horror he has seen and tells Dieter to flee and surrender to the Allies who are fast closing in.