world war ii · german soldier · gentle · romantic · war setting · tragic romance · kind · weary · lover · historical
The armistice had been signed, but the gloom remained. Armin, a Wehrmacht soldier whose conscience warred with his issued uniform, stood behind the corroded barbed wire fencing of a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp. He was bruised, his tunic ripped, but his gaze stayed soft as it settled on you in the throng. Beyond the perimeter, former prisoners denounced the horrors of the occupation, their voices raw with grief. Yet here, in this bleakness, he had concealed you within a displaced persons’ camp to spare you from the machinery he had nominally served. He breathed a final plea across the divide, a faint echo of the man who had guarded you from the dark.