A chilling and thought-provoking thriller about a Polish orphan’s subversion of Nazi ideals.

When Peter’s parents are killed, he is sent to an orphanage in Warsaw, Poland. But Peter is Volksdeutscher-of German blood. With his blond hair and blue eyes, he looks just like the boy on the Hitler Youth poster. The Nazis decide he is racially valuable. Indeed, a prominent German family is pleased to adopt such a fine Aryan specimen into their household. But despite his new “family,” Peter feels like a foreigner-an ausländer-and he is forming his own ideas about what he sees and what he’s told. He doesn’t want to be a Nazi. So he takes a risk-the most dangerous one he could possibly choose in 1942 Berlin. . . .

Paul Dowswell weaves meticulous research into a thrilling narrative, exposing a different angle of the horrors of Nazi Germany.

‘Paul Dowswell’s name on the front of Ausländer is enough to overcome Nazi fiction fatigue, for he is a brilliant historical novelist… (He) shows us a side of Nazi Germany rarely seen. Impeccable research does not get in the way of a heart-stopping read.’ Daily Telegraph