Dr Max Aue is a family man and owner of a lace factory in post-war France He is an intellectual steeped in philosophy, literature, and classical music He is also a former SS intelligence officer and cold-blooded assassin He was an observer and then a participant in Nazi atrocities on the Eastern Front, he was present at the siege of Stalingrad, at the death camps, and finally caught up in the overthrow of the Nazis and the nightmarish fall of Berlin His world was peopled by Eichmann, Himmler, Goring, Speer and, of course, Hitler himself Max is looking back at his life with cool-eyed precision he is speaking out now to set the record straight