A bracing meditation on the nature of evil and a moving evocation of the human heart, Siegfried is one of Harry Mulisch's most powerful novels. After a reading of his work, renowned Dutch author Rudolf Herter, who had recently commented in a television interview that it may be only through fiction that the uniquely evil figure of Adolf Hitler can be truly comprehended, is approached by an elderly couple. The pair reveal that as domestic servants in Hitler's Bavarian retreat in the waning years of the war, they were witness to the jealously guarded birth of Siegfried—the son of Hitler and Eva Braun. For more than fifty years they have kept silent about the child they once raised as their own. Only now and only to Herter are they willing to reveal their astonishing story.

The Secret Life of Siegfried and Roy reveals the touching, little-known story of how two youngsters founded a friendship, a franchise, and a tempestuous on-and-off love affair that would last a lifetime.

Wagner wanted Siegfried, the third music drama in The Ring of the Nibelung, to be the most popular of the cycle. Despite its many beautiful and dramatic scenes, it has not fulfilled its composer's aspiration: Professor Ulrich Weisstein examines why. Professor Anthony Newcomb contributes a detailed analysis of Wagner's leitmotifs and the different purposes they fulfil. Derrick Puffett discusses how Wagner composed Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg in the eight-year hiatus between his beginning and completion of Siegfried's second act. The thematic guide complements those found in the other Opera Guides to The Ring Cycle.Contents: Educating Siegfried, Ulrich Weisstein; 'Siegfried': The Music, Anthony Newcomb; 'Siegfried' in the Context of Wagner's Operatic Writing, Derrick Puffett; Siegfried: Poem by Richard Wagner; Siegfried: English translation by Andrew Porter

It is the spring of 1929 and, while the international jet set is celebrating the last hurrah of the jazz age, the international military set is gearing up for a war to make the world safe for dictatorships. In Berlin Count Siegfried von Ohr is accustomed to dividing his time between partying and espionage. Now the Minister wants him to go to the Soviet Union. Stalin has given permission for Germany (stripped of all its armed forces by the VersaillesTreaty) to operate a clandestine airbase in Russia, where the future officers of both the Luftwaffe and the Red Air Force will be secretly trained and equipped. Siegfried recruits his younger brother Tristan (a pilot) to join him in the Workers Paradise. Everything the brothers do there will be dangerousand illegal. In Moscow Siegfried soon discovers that being a guest of Stalin brings him to the attention of the dreaded secret police, the OGPU. Circumstances require Siegfried to do a favor for the head of the secret police. But then a crazed OGPU agent tries to recruit Siegfried into a conspiracy to destroy Stalin! Luckily at this precise moment the Minister orders Siegfried to go to Italy and enjoy the pretty scenery and spy on Mussolini