"When I asked my father about his thick hair in childhood, he said it was from the war; they would rub fresh birch sap into their scalps every day. I didn't ask further, as I probably wouldn't have received a more precise answer, as often happened when it came to the past. It only became clear to me decades later when I held photos of soldier graves in my hands and saw that many crosses behind the front were made from young birch trunks. 'Dying in Spring' is the story of Walter Urban and Friedrich - 'Fiete' - Caroli, two seventeen-year-old milkers from Northern Germany who are conscripted in February 1945. While one is assigned as a driver in the supply unit of the Waffen-SS, the other, Fiete, has to go to the front. He deserts, is caught, and sentenced to death, while Walter, whose cynical superior won't listen to reason, stands by.".