In The Heritage, first published in German in 1978, Zygmunt Rogalla, an elderly Masurian rug-maker from Lucknow - which was once part of East Prussia, now part of Poland - tells his story from a hospital bed. The curator of the Masurian museum, where objects were collected as a symbol of the culture that had been lost in the second world war and after, he is also its destroyer, his injuries self-inflicted. Through the remembrance of his sufferings, he explains why the museum was so important to him, and to his fellow exiles, and what terrible discovery led him to destroy not only his life's greatest work, but the objects salvaged from his people's lost past.

In writing this novel, one of the major works of German fiction to appear since the Second World War, Siegfried Lenz has written, 'I was trying to find out where the joys of duty could lead a people.' His exploration is a disturbing triumph. Siggi Jepsen, the protagonist, is embroiled in the conflict between the totalitarian Nazi government and a creative artist. As a young boy he watched his father, constable of the northernmost police station in Germany, doggedly carry out orders from Berlin to stop a well-known Expressionist, their neighbour, from painting and to seize all his 'degenerate' work. Soon Siggi is hiding the paintings to keep them safe from his father. Against the great brooding landscape of the Danish borderland, Siggi recounts the clash of father and son, of duty and personal loyalty in wartime Germany.

'The German Lesson has the virtue of being a novel about the War and about persecution which deliberately avoids violence and obvious horrors. To this . . . are added the . . . merits of lucidity, elegance, a brilliant organizing skill.' "The Sunday Times"

'Visually the wary folk and bitter landscape of the Danish borderland comes over as potently as Grass's East Prussia.' "The Guardian"

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'The timeless conflict . . . ''duty'' versus individual conscience and morality is given bizarre, complex form in Lenz's powerful tale. . . Mordantly witty, despairing, impassioned, this is one of the most deeply imagined and thought-provoking novels from Germany in years.' "Library Journal"

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'The German Lesson marks a double triumph - a book of rare depth and brilliance, to begin with, presented in an English version that succeeds against improbable odds in conveying the full power of the original.' Ernst Pawel, "The New York Times Book Review"

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'The German Lesson is, quite simply, the book I have been waiting ever since the end of World War 11 for a German to write. 'Kaye Boyle

'A remarkable, earnest and important novel. Lenz moves toward realizing new dimensions and perspectives on the German sensibility that must contribute to our eventual understanding of the madness of the times.' Robert K. Morris, "The Nation"

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'If ever the Third Reich was pictured in microcosm, with its prejudices against people not rooted in the land, and its tiny spasms of nationalistic fervour that added up to an irrational howl in final sum, then Lenz has done it . . . has surpassed it.' Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, "New York Times"

In this quiet and devastating novel about the rise of fascism, Siggi Jepsen, incarcerated as a juvenile delinquent, is assigned to write a routine German lesson on the "The Joys of Duty." Overfamiliar with these joys, Siggi sets down his life since 1943, a decade earlier, when as a boy he watched his father, a constable, doggedly carry out orders from Berlin to stop a well-known Expressionist artist from painting and to seize all his "degenerate" work. Soon Siggi is stealing the paintings to keep them safe from his father. "I was trying to find out," Lenz says, "where the joys of duty could lead a people." Translated from the German by Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins

It is the last watch of the lightship that stands at anchor in the Baltic Sea, near the port of Kiel; it is nine years since the end of World War II and the mines she warned the shipping of have been removed. But on her last watch, her peace is interrupted: her captain, Freytag, takes in three men whose boat has broken down, and with them, their illegal cargo of guns. Held hostage on the ship by the three criminals, headed by the sinister Dr Caspary, the tensions between captain and crew become apparent. Freytag still hopes for a peaceful end to the watch; but his son, Fred, and his resourceful but outgunned crew cannot forget Freytag's dishonour in the war. As a stalemate develops, Freytag finds he must make a final choice - one that must redeem him in the eyes of his men.

Siggi Jepsen, incarcerated as a juvenile delinquent, is one day assigned to write a routine German lesson on the "The Joys of Duty." Overfamiliar with these joys, Siggi sets down his life since 1943, a decade earlier, when as a boy he watched his father, constable of the northernmost police station in Germany, doggedly carry out orders from Berlin to stop a well-known Expressionist, their neighbor, from painting and to seize all his degenerate" work. Soon Siggi is stealing the paintings to keep them safe from his father. Against the great brooding northern landscape. Siggi recounts the clash of father and son, of duty and personal loyalty, in wartime Germany. I was trying to find out, Lenz says, "where the joys of duty could lead a people"

A bestseller in Germany, Michael Wieck's account of his childhood in Konigsberg recalls a German city obliterated by fire-bombing during the Second World War. As the child of a Jewish mother and Gentile father, Wieck was persecuted first as a "certified Jew" by the Nazis, then as a German by the Russian occupiers, including horrific internment in the Rothenstein concentration camp. In the midst of privation, savagery, and death, there were moments of absurdity, and Wieck powerfully depicts them in this unforgettable memoir.