Fatherland: A Memoir of War, Conscience, and Family Secrets

When Burkhard Bilger's grandfather died, he left behind a mystery. Celebrated by his family as a principled Catholic judge who had resisted Nazism, he had in fact served the Third Reich for years, handing down sentences in its courts. Determined to understand how an honorable man could become complicit in an evil regime, Bilger embarks on a deeply personal investigation into his family's past.
Drawing on newly uncovered archives, court records, letters, and interviews, Bilger reconstructs his grandfather's life against the backdrop of Nazi Germany and postwar Europe. As he untangles family myths from historical reality, he confronts enduring questions about guilt, loyalty, conscience, and the moral compromises ordinary people make under authoritarian rule.
Combining memoir, investigative journalism, and historical narrative, Fatherland is a powerful meditation on memory, responsibility, and the uneasy legacy that history leaves within families.