Born in 1935, Robert Hallmann came of age in a Germany that had been transformed under Adolf Hitler's dictatorship. The nation rose from depression as unemployed men were put to work on extensive public works projects, but soon enough they would be armed and sent forth to conquer Europe. Taking stock of the devastation caused by Hitler's so-called "thousand-year Reich," Hallmann shares how the war was experienced in his Westphalian village, a place hardly changed in recent centuries—until General Patton's Third Army attacked it.