Transfer to Munich

This novel deals with a 20-year old Jewish-American soldier in postwar Germany, stationed in Nuremberg, who is transferred to Munich on January 18, 1960 He has five months remaining to his enlistment. David Streiber is in the Signal Corps and is assigned to an electronics repair team, but works as a clerk in the office overseeing six teams in the Munich area. He now is stationed at Henry Kaserne on the north end of town and on Saturdays goes into the city and reflects of the buildings and sites where Hitler and the Nazi Party got their start in the 1920s. David goes to Jewish services at McGraw Kaserne on the other side of town and is approached by an American middle-age civilian who had served in World War II. The civilian asks David for Army technical manuals for microwave equipment, ostensibly for his import-export business. David reports the incident to the Military Intelligence Group at McGraw, and learns that the civilian is suspected of being a spy for East Germany. M. I. G. pressures David to be a "handler," a counterspy to obtain information from the suspected spy. Before David obtains much information, he goes on a 12-day tour of Israel sponsored by the Jewish Chaplains association. When he returns, the shop sergeant that David likes is being court-martialed by the warrant officer David works for, and the young soldier is torn between helping a friend and not offending his boss. Before long the civilian is arrested by the German police. David's romantic advances are rejected by a one-quarter Jewish Fraeulein he met in a bar owned by a Holocaust survivor. Before going home, David visits nearby Dachau and see the former concentration camp. He also goes back to Nuremberg on his last weekend in Germany, to find the attractive Fraeulein he was enamored with but never dated during his 10-month stay in that city. David finds her in a bar, she now is willing to spend time with him, and they sleep together for one night in a Pension. On his return to Munich, David learns the non-Jewish husband of an older women he befriended on the tour to Israel, Mr. Armson, called Arms by his unit buddies, a career soldier and helicopter pilot, has been killed in a crash. He attends the funeral, where the Protestant pastor recites King David's 23rd psalm in the Old Testament, and bids his farewell to Arms. After his return by ship to the States, David is discharged from the Army, his own farewell to arms. The book ends with David going to Brooklyn College, his dream for the better part of his three-year enlistment, his "ticket" out of Coney Island, the neighborhood in which he grew up in and is now severely deteriorating. The sequel to this novel will explore the main character's life and loves after the Army.