Robert Stadlober

A Russian and a German sniper play a game of cat-and-mouse during the Battle of Stalingrad in WWII.

An anthology feature of 10 stories of romance set in the German capital.

Yascha Krüger is a shy forestry official who struggles with dating and tends to scare people off. While temporarily working in a forest district, he meets Mats, a photographer, and the two develop a romantic connection. At the same time, Yascha is assigned a professional task: to persuade the heirs of a recently deceased landowner to sell a private forest so it can be turned into a national park. As Yascha becomes more involved in both his work and his growing feelings for Mats, he finds himself telling lies that complicate his relationships and force him to confront what he truly wants—both personally and professionally.

On the night of August 24, 1944, the fate of Paris rests with General von Choltitz, who plans to destroy the city on Hitler's orders. As the general prepares to detonate explosives throughout the capital, Swedish consul Raoul Nordling uses diplomacy in a desperate bid to convince him to defy the orders and save Paris.

Barbara and her partner Heli are professional clowns, living out their dream of an alternative, joy filled life with their two children, laughing at what doesn't work out. But when a tragic car accident takes Heli and the children, Barbara is left alone. In the face of unspeakable loss, her belief in humor, hope, and humanity is put to the ultimate test. Can her way of seeing the world — through both its light and shadow — help her find a way back to life? She bets she'll laugh again.

A 14-year-old orphan named Krabat flees the horrors of the 30 Years War by becoming an apprentice to an ominous master of a mysterious mill. Krabat is not only taught the craft of milling, but is also instructed in the sinister world of the darker arts. When the life of his friend and protector is threatened, Krabat must struggle to free himself from an evil sorcerer's control in a gripping fight for freedom, friendship and love.

As a forestry student doing an internship, Anja Grimm ends up in that remote area in the Upper Palatinate Forest, where she went on vacation with her parents as an eight-year-old girl and her father disappeared without a trace. Her job is to take soil samples to create a soil map. At one point in the forest floor she comes across abnormal irregularities. Not long after their arrival, a brutal murder occurs. Anja soon arouses suspicion and hostility not only among the villagers with her suspicion that the perpetrator knows something about her father's fate and with her questions about the atypical soil composition in the forest clearing. Even the police react extremely reservedly to their investigations. And when it turns out that the young woman can read the signs of the forest like an open book, forces mobilize in the village who are apparently ready for anything because there is a dark secret that needs to be kept.

When Andreas arrives in the remote valley in the Austrian Alps, he is only about four years old - nobody knows for sure. He grows up to become a skilled farmhand and, as a young man, joins a work crew that builds one of the first mountain railroads, bringing light and noise to the valley along with electricity. He also finds the love of his life in Marie, but their happiness is short-lived. Only many years later, when Andreas embarks on his final journey, she is with him once again. And in amazement Andreas looks back at all the years that lie behind him.