The Legacy

The story begins in the waning months of World War II. Attempting a rendezvous with a Brazilian freighter, a German U-boat is sunk by a stray mine off the Southern coast of Nova Scotia. All hands go down with the exception of the First Officer, one Oberlieutenant Eric Staedtler and Herr Gottlieb, an S.S. Officer traveling as a civilian. After Gottlieb dies of a head injury, Eric examines the contents of the attachi case which has been Gottlieb's constant companion throughout their voyage and discovers that it contains a fortune in diamonds. Weeks later Eric drifts close to shore on the coast of Maine and is rescued by a fisherman. He manages to bury the briefcase before he is picked up by the authorities. Taken to a Naval hospital to be treated for exposure, exhaustion and a head injury, he is befriended by one of the nurses. Confronted by the reality that he is not going to survive, as his health fails, he conceals within his personal belongings, a letter to his wife Elsa and a map showing the location of the diamonds. He solicits from his nurse a vow that, after the war, she will see that his family receives his personal effects. After the war the nurse learns that Eric's wife was apparently killed in an Allied bombing raid and his daughter, Inge, is in an orphanage not far from their home town. She sends Eric's personal effects to Inge and the two become pen pals. Some years later Inge receives a scholarship to the University of Munich where she meets and dates a handsome civil service worker, Helmut Reuter. One evening, in a heated argument with him the letter and map are inadvertently revealed. Thus begins a romantic adventure that involves three continents, passionate love, treacherous journeys, corrupt law officials, cunning adversaries and unscrupulous war criminals.