From 1933 the Nazis invaded and took over every element of German life. In their new world, there would be no place for God. Dietrich Karsten was a young Protestant priest who gave up most of his 20's and sacrificed happiness with the woman he loved to defend his true beliefs. He joined the Confessional Church - a brotherhood of priests determined to fight the new Nazi faith sweeping through Germany. He was harassed and persecuted by the Gestapo. And yet, this is the same man who volunteered for the Wehrmacht and won the Iron Cross for valour in the invasion of France. He died in the frozen wastes of the Eastern Front in January 1942. 'Confessions of a German Soldier' is the moving account of the life of Dietrich Karsten. It is a tale of resistance and complicity in Nazi Germany and of the powerful forces of history that confronted ordinary Germans who objected to the regime. The story is told through Dietrich's warm and honest letters to his wife and through his grand-daughter's quest to find his grave. Lena Karsten is joined by British historian Gabriel Fawcett as she travels across Europe to the depths of rural Russia in search of her grandfather's lives as the pastor, resistor, victor and vanquished; looking for his grave and answers to the question: Why did the rebel priest become a model soldier fighting and dying for Hitler? 'Confessions of a German Soldier' is a captivating historical mystery with a real sense of pace, character and drama.
—Anonymous