Turning August

August Wichmann could sway almost anyone. And his means of persuasion were legendary.He attracted supporters with ease. He won the trust of strangers with little effort. He captivated his college students whenever his lessons included him in the personas of different cultures.The SS took notice. So did the Resistance. They both wanted his persuasion skills for their purposes.As a rising SS officer, he convinced himself that he was dedicated in service to his country.Until he witnessed the brutalities firsthand.After that, working with the SS was a daily torment. Doubling for the Resistance created a different kind of agony, as he had to feign indifference to the atrocities to keep his cover secure.Persuading himself to keep up the charade became a grueling ordeal.In his desperate, no-win state, he shared his fears with Brigitte, herself a pawn in the deadly games.Their only reprieve came from those entrenched in the Resistance, including spymaster Admiral Canaris and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who became the fixed star by which August and Brigitte navigated their shifting moral boundaries.Set against a tangled web of Abwehr agents and double agents, broken trust and deception, and the earnest hopes and thwarted plans of the Resistance, they tread a precarious path, holding fast to conscience in the face of the horrific evil they were required to fight from the inside.