After completing his masonry apprenticeship and serving in the Reich Labor Service, the author, born in Essen in 1926, volunteers for the Waffen-SS, where he is drafted in February 1944 to Munich-Freimann. As an SS tank reconnaissance soldier, he joins the 11th SS Volunteer Panzer Grenadier Division 'Nordland' and is deployed in the Narva area. He participates in the retreat battles in Estonia, is wounded in the process, and is transferred via the Baltic Sea to a home hospital. As a severely wounded soldier, he falls into US captivity in April 1945 and embarks on a long odyssey through Allied camps in Germany, Belgium, and France, until he finally sees freedom again in July 1946.