“I feel like a cannibal.” “Didn’t I tell you? Charred on the outside and raw on the inside.” “But we can’t just throw it away—what a waste!” “Just imagine, a whole sheep. I could trade one for a crate of French—” “The wood is probably drier in the Pampas.” “That filet steak with goose liver at Horcher’s—well, you can just keep all your Pampas and your old gauchos . . .” “Yes, but what are we going to do with the stuff now?” “Why don’t you give it to the Russians?”

“Have you lost a lot of them too?” “If you want to split hairs, it’s really not quite proper—after all, they’re POWs.” “Just another dumb idea. They’re much too weak for farm labor.” “Two-thirds of ours kicked the bucket the very first day.” “The poor guys are so starved they eat grass like cattle!” “And you want to give them a whole sheep?” “They’ll all croak on you.” “That’s what Udo said. If someone’s starving, you don’t just . . .” “Well, none of our people are going to touch this. I know my Pomeranians all too well.” “What the peasant don’t know, he don’t eat.” “Stolze’ll do something with it. He’s fantastic.” “Just dump it in the carp pond.” “That’s why the eels get so fat in the Baltic.”

“When I picture the thing oven-roasted, golden-brown, and with nice green beans . . .” “Anyway, put the fire out, Stolze. No enemy pilot has ever wandered this way—but you never can tell.” “Goddamn it, Henning, if you don’t keep your hands to yourself . . .”

1943, summer evening in the valley of the Unstrut, Thuringia.