1960 - Dreibrücken, a town perched on the edge of the Bavarian Alps, has escaped the ghosts of its Nazi past. Erich Paulus, just entering manhood, grew up with rumors of his martyred stepfather's resistance to the Nazis and their persecution of the town's Jewish residents. Erich works in his stepmother's candy shop, but he lives for carousing and playing football with his friends. When he meets an alluring young visitor from Israel, the guest of town pariah and former nun, Elesa Reigl, Erich's sheltered life is changed forever.1944 - Nazi Germany is on the brink of defeat, but the people of Dreibrücken are still in thrall to Adolf Hitler and his local surrogate, Joaquim von Hoessing. Von Hoessing is the fascist Gauleiter of the Bavarian province surrounding Dreibrücken, and he governs the region as his own personal fiefdom, inspiring both fear and adulation. When he takes as his personal nurse a beautiful young nun named Elesa in exchange for sparing the Jews who have been hidden in the catacombs of the local Catholic church, von Hoessing sets in motion a chain of events that reverberates beyond the fall of the Nazi regime and into the next generation.