Grunwald has lost his wife and son to the Nazis, taken away to camps before the war. It's now after the war and he is in Berlin when he encounters Dr. Schwarzenbach, now going under the name Luetze whom he remembered from before in the Polish camps. Schwarzenbach had been engaged in despicable "experiments" on camp victims ostensibly to learn how much pain a human could take. Grunwald is tormented by guilt for having assisted Schwarzenbach in his experiments in order to save his own life. Events are driving the two inexorably together after Grunewald recognizes Schwarzenbach.
Ironically, each had been urged to leave: Schwarzenbach by his Nazi colleagues who are escaping to Spain and then elsewhere, and Grunwald by a woman who befriends him and says he return to his hometown, Munich. Schwarzenbach realizes that Grunwald can betray him to the Americans, already suspicious of him and so he decides Grunwald must be killed. The allies are eager to root out any Nazis who now find it expediant to grovel before their new masters.
A very interesting novel dealing with guilt, responsibility, and the randomness of life that doesn't always bring the guiltless to the top. The ending is frightenly ambiguous.
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