An upholsterer in Amsterdam found a bundle of swastika-covered documents inside the cushion of an armchair; they belonged to Dr. Robert Griesinger, a lawyer from Stuttgart, who joined the S.S. and worked at the Reich's Ministry of Economics and Labor in Nazi-occupied Prague during the war. As Lee follows the footsteps of a rank and file Nazi official and chronicles what became of him and his family at the war's end, Griesinger's role in Nazi crimes comes into focus. As Lee investigates the life of this S.S. officer during World War Two, he also encapsulates the tragic experience of a generation of Europeans. -- adapted from jacket.

List of illustrations and maps -- Dramatis Personae -- Introduction -- A "real" Nazi -- Inheriting ideas from the New World -- "Zero hour" -- The "war-youth" generation -- Hollow talk -- The SS family -- Lebensraum -- Stavyshche -- Beer bottles -- The man on the Bahnhofstrasse -- Gisela went out to dance -- Epilogue.