Many times Uwe Timm tried to write about his brother, a volunteer in the SS Totenkopf division. But every time he started reading his diary and letters from the front, he put them aside, afraid to find confirmation of his brother’s participation in the atrocities of the SS men. Now, many years after the war, the author is immersed in reading these materials. And the recordings give an idea of the “normal cruelty” - of the war on the Eastern Front. Only one, the last phrase of the diary suggests signs of his brother’s insight: “This is where I end my diary, because I consider it pointless to keep track of such terrible things that sometimes happen in life.”