Pale, plain, 30-year-old Ralph Kastner did not have much use for his father. Socially and politically, father Hermann was an opportunist. After Ralph's mother had divorced him in 1944, father Hermann managed a retrial which declared his wife guilty, hounded her and their daughter out of Dresden. When he married again, Hermann chose blowzy, peroxide-blonde Trude Mirtsching, a stenographer with excellent Soviet connections. A year later, conniving Hermann had worked up from a minor political boss to be Deputy Chairman of the Economic Commission, forerunner of the East German government.
Last fall the new East German government made Hermann a Deputy...
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