On January 14, 1943, the doctor Dr. Horst Rocholl (1908-2003) wrote to his wife: "The soldier in the trench can come home wounded, seriously wounded, or sick. I was not allowed to go forward because I am a doctor and must make our soldiers combat-ready again. So I wait for the day that I dread, not because of the likely death, no, but because of what I will have to see and feel." The Battle of Stalingrad was the central event in Horst Rocholl's life that shaped his worldview. During his captivity, the NSDAP member opened himself to new ideas, influenced by the realization of German guilt. Despite his involvement in the National Committee for a Free Germany (NKFD), he was sentenced in 1948 to 25 years of camp imprisonment, which he served in Workuta and as a doctor in a Stalingrad camp. Here he met Ottmar Kohler, the model for Konsalik's novel.