In 1979, Hans Bayer sat down at a typewriter to compose his memoirs. A noncom in the German Army in World War II, Bayer had served in the Hitler's Body Guards division. For a number of reasons, among them guilt at having been caught up in Nazi fanaticism, Bayer wanted to record some of the key details of his past, especially his experiences in the Hitler Youth and later in the inferno of the war. Miller and Toothman have translated this story of one young German's experience in a world holocaust, hoping that this book in some way will help to ensure that such horrors will never occur again.