Kurt Schreiber can hardly believe his luck when his grade 12 German exchange lands him in Zethen, a town just east of Berlin where his beloved grandfather had grown up in the 1930's. Although Kurt had questioned his grandfather about his life in Germany, he received no answers so is determined to clarify his grandfather's past if only to silence the horrible dreams he endures in which, as a German soldier, he kills helpless civilians. Then at his great-grandparents' gravesite he meets an old man, Wolfgang Brandt, his grandfather's best childhood friend. As Kurt tries to escape the local bully and finds himself falling in love with Marta, Brandt's granddaughter, he slowly drinks in Brandt's war-time story about his grandfather's real actions during the war. As the war story climbs to a gripping climax, Kurt and Marta save the bully's brother from drowning in a vicious electrical storm. Kurt brings Wolfgang back to Canada for a visit to re-connect with his old friend, and makes plans to attend university in Berlin.