Caught Between Swastika, Hammer & Sickle

Book excerpt: Tell me some more about your nice friends in the army. You always seem to have adventures. Graphic artist by profession and avid motorcycle enthusiast, young Hans Schaefer is conscripted into Hitler's war as a soldier in the Signal Corps. Thus the reluctant yet courageous soldier bears witness to the horrors of war on the infamous Eastern Front. An articulate opponent of Hitler and his Nazi regime, Hans is relentlessly torn between loyalty to his fellow soldiers as they fight for the Führer's megalomaniac ideas and his own conscience. As a soldier he suffers extreme hardships under the German command and later, as a prisoner of war, he is both victim of and eyewitness to the Red Army's particular brand of cruelty and punishment. Yet Hans is a survivor, living by his wits and by his art. Wily and talented, he draws portraits for both the Nazis and the Russians, gaining admiration and respect from high-ranking German officers and from his Russian enemies alike. Throughout, this tenacious man never loses his moral compass. He survives the Soviet labour camps to return safely home to his family in Kiel when war finally ends in 1945. Moving to Canada to make a fresh start in a new world, Hans lives to chronicle his harrowing adventures during some of the darkest and bloodiest years in Europe's history. The collaboration of Mr. Spezzano's writing and Hans Schaefer's war experiences has produced an epic account of a German soldier's flight from the pathological Nazi regime. This novel echoes the reservations of the many Germans who harboured conflicting loyalties during the ascendancy of the Third Reich. It's also a very human story about love and loss. A courageous masterpiece and a testament to one man's struggle to retain his dignity and individuality in a world torn apart by tyrants. Jack Baret Screenwriter