In the summer of 1983, on the banks of the Rhine River near Frankfurt, Germany, I met and spoke briefly with an old woman . The moment was frighteningly memorable. My introduction as Herr Hauptmann (Mister Captain) Adolph apparently sparked her memory and a secret, heartfelt desire.

At the time, I was commanding a military intelligence company in the U.S. Army’s 5th Corps, which was then arrayed along the key fault line of the Cold War: the heavily armed border between East and West Germany. For reasons that I never understood, she pulled me aside and began speaking in a hushed whisper so that nobody nearby could overhear her. My unfortunate surname —  Adolph  — had awakened something within her that she felt compelled to share. Her subsequent darkly surreal monologue he

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