Summary:
In 1939, 23-year-old Karl Schmidt is living the life of a German man, with a wife, a daughter, and is working as a blacksmith and has a gorgeous house. Everything is perfect until it happens: Poland is invaded by Germany. His whole life is turned upside down when the SS comes to his town and gets DRAFTED. WILL he survive, or will the barrel of a tank be the last thing he ever sees?

Chapter 1:
Life Before It Happened

“BOOM, CLANG, SSSSSSSS”
“Honey?”
“BOOM, CLANG, SSSSSSSS”
“Honey!?” Karl dropped the hammer on the cold hard floor covered with burning embers. Some sprayed up into the air, making funnel like shapes that looked like small fire twisters.
“Yes?” He said in a panting voice, which could barely be heard over the crackling and hissing of the fire.
“Gunther is here,” she said with her arms crossed “and he’s not happy.” Karl whipped a large blob of sweat off his forehead.
“Well tell him that I’m busy and I’ll get that darn bookshelf when I’m done working on this fence!” he said in an elevated tone.

A strong gust of wind from outside blew in and caused embers to levitate off the ground and fly every which way. Karl picked up his hammer again and started pounding and scraping the long red hot metal rod.

“Well I’m not telling him,” she said as she raised her hands in the air. “You’re just gonna have to tell him yourself!” Karl kept on pounding, and didn’t even turn around.
“He also said he’s not going to pay you for it.” This time Karl took the hammer and slammed it so hard on the anvil that it nearly broke. This caused many more embers and smoke to fly into the air once more. He turned around and started stomping straight towards Eve.

Eve Bernard was a French women Karl had met 4 years earlier while attending Heidelberg University. It was love at first sight. They first met during math class. The first thing he said to her was ‘‘Let me pick up your books.’’

(Story to be continued...)