A Tale of Two Soldiers

A Tale of Two Soldiers is a memoir about the unlikely friendship an American Jewish G.I. and trained sniper for the US Army formed with a German Luftwaffe pilot during WWII. On Dec. 18 1944 twenty-one-year-old Max Gendelman was captured in the Battle of the Bulge one of only a handful in his company to survive. Starving and dazed his dog tags blown off he was marched through German villages and eventually arrived at a farm the Reich had commandeered from a German family. The family's grandson Karl Kirschner a lieutenant in the Luftwaffe conscripted against his will was hiding out in one of the barns. To Max's astonishment one day Karl spoke to him through the fence they discovered a shared passion for chess and began to secretly meet to play the game. As they got to know each other they recognized what they needed to do they formed a pact a plan to escape together. This was the start of a friendship that would endure for more than six decades. A young Jewish G.I. taken prisoner in the