FOREIGN HANSER RIGHTS - Hanser Literaturverlage

FOREIGN
ZSOLNAY
RIGHTS
Michael Martens
Heldensuche
In Search of Heroes.
The Story of the Soldier Who Would Not Kill
Novel. 400 pages. Hardcover
Publication date: July 25, 2011
In the middle of the Second World War a German soldier refuses to shoot and kill
partisans; he is consequently shot himself. Was this a one-off occurrence? Michael
Martens on the trail of a soldier who refused to obey orders.
July 1941, Smederevska Palanka, a town to the south of Belgrade: sixteen partisans captured
by the Wehrmacht stand in front of a haystack awaiting execution by firing squad.
The Germans have already raised their rifles when one soldier throws down his weapon and
says: »I will not shoot. These men are innocent!« The officer in charge cannot believe his ears.
Has one of his men dared to disobey his orders? Does he mean to stir up a mutiny? The officer
makes an instant decision: the man is ordered to stand with the partisans and be executed
alongside them.
But there are eyewitnesses, and after the war Josef Schulz, the German who had the audacity
to disobey, becomes a national hero in Yugoslavia. Memorials are erected in his honour;
films are dedicated to him; and schoolchildren learn about his courageous act of defiance.
But why does no one in outside Former Yugoslavia know about this unique event in the
history of the Second World War?
Embarking on a hunt for clues, Michael Martens finds himself caught up in a historical
detective story. His trail leads him halfway across Europe to Vienna, Berlin and Brussels. His
research is brought sharply into focus by present day discoveries. It becomes apparent that
what happened is by no means unheard of, and that some of those involved are, in fact, still
alive....
Michael Martens
born in Hamburg in 1973. From 2002 to 2009 he worked as a correspondent for Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung in Belgrade. Since then he has reported for the paper from Istanbul.
H I STO RY