Reading Dietmar Wachter

On the back of the yellowed photograph of my grandfather, who died in the Second World War, in Grandma's bedroom, there were three distant cousins, all of them very old, the first demented in a retirement home in Vienna, the second somewhere in a missionary home in the jungle of Brazil and the third who had been with the Siberian Germans in Kazakhstan for ages, where she had once run away with a married doctor, and Karl, my grandfather's brother, of whom I knew nothing - apart from rumors.

With the picaresque novel "Der schöne Karl - Von einem, der die NSDAP betrog", the author takes us - despite the war-criminal background - in a sophisticated and exciting way into a time in which there was little to laugh about for many people.

I recently came across Karl, my grandfather's brother. He lived a rather adventurous life and, like his two brothers, is said to have died in the war. Rumors later surfaced that the handsome Charly only served in the German army for a few days, threw away his uniform and deserted. He left behind a box full of diaries and court documents. The bon vivant Charles not only deceived the ladies, but also the NSDAP. He was a cunning marriage swindler and gifted art forger, a graceful impostor and an extremely shrewd swindler. The following is about him