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Publication Date: June 3, 2026

Originally published in 1989 and now appearing in English for the first time, this memoir by former East German spymaster Markus Wolf follows three boys and their Communist expatriate families—two from Germany, one from the United States—who form deep childhood bonds as they come of age in Moscow during the turmoil of Stalin’s Great Terror of the 1930s. Dispersed by the events of World War II, they wind up in different corners of the geopolitical map as they mature, survive the chaos of war, and struggle to reinforce or abandon the principles instilled in them as young men. 

As adults on both sides of a divided Germany and in the United States, they find that the daily realities of the Cold War offer significant challenges to the foundations of their socialist upbringing. From Stalinist purges to capitalist transformations, covert ops to cinematic triumphs, Markus Wolf’s memoir—enhanced with archival photographs and documents—deftly weaves various threads of the complicated twentieth century and its consequential ideologies into a magnificent tapestry.

About the Authors

Markus Wolf (1923–2006) was the head of the foreign intelligence division of East Germany’s Ministry for State Security from 1952 to 1986. After Germany’s reunification, in 1990, he became an author and memoirist.

Katharina Friedla is the Taube Family Curator and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, specializing in twentieth-century Eastern Europe, Jewish history, and World War II.

Christian F. Ostermann is the Peter J. and Frances Duignan Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, research professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy, and the executive director of the National Cold War Center.

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