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Researched over a year spent in Berlin, this literary gem uncovers the extraordinary histories of the author's grandfather and father: Kurt Wolff, a renowned publisher described by the New York Times Book Review as "perhaps the twentieth century's most discriminating publisher," and his son Niko, who fought in the Wehrmacht during World War II before emigrating to America. Born in Bonn to a cultured German-Jewish family, Kurt became a publisher at twenty-three, launching his own firm and publishing notable authors like Franz Kafka and Joseph Roth—works later burned by the Nazis. Fleeing Germany in 1933, just after the Reichstag fire, Kurt and his second wife sought refuge in France, Italy, and finally New York, where they founded Pantheon Books in a small Greenwich Village apartment. Pantheon would later publish Boris Pasternak's Nobel-winning novel Doctor Zhivago and introduce major European works to American readers. Meanwhile, Kurt's son Niko, from his first marriage, remained in Germany, serving the Nazis despite his Jewish heritage. As Alexander Wolff explores archives and meets relatives, he uncovers long-hidden secrets, including the family's connection to Hitler and a half-brother Niko never knew. With revelations from unpublished letters, diaries, and photographs, this work weaves a moving family story of history, exile, and the complexities of identity.