Chap­ter 7 takes the read­er through Howard W. Camp­bell, Jr.‘s ear­ly life, offer­ing a reflec­tive view of his child­hood in Sch­enec­tady, New York. Born on Feb­ru­ary 16, 1912, he recalls grow­ing up in a house­hold where his father, an engi­neer at Gen­er­al Elec­tric, was most­ly absent due to his work in the Ser­vice Engi­neer­ing Depart­ment. This depart­ment required fre­quent trav­el for the instal­la­tion and main­te­nance of heavy machin­ery, which kept him away from home. Camp­bell describes his father’s sole pas­sion, a mas­sive pic­ture book on the First World War, which seemed to play a mys­te­ri­ous and impor­tant role in his life. How­ev­er, his father dis­cour­aged him from explor­ing the book, claim­ing it was not for chil­dren. Despite the warn­ing, Camp­bell secret­ly looked through the dis­turb­ing images, which hint­ed at the dark and vio­lent themes that would lat­er play a sig­nif­i­cant role in his life, fore­shad­ow­ing the expe­ri­ences that would come to shape his iden­ti­ty and future choic­es.

Campbell’s moth­er, Vir­ginia Crock­er, was a beau­ti­ful yet trou­bled woman who strug­gled with alco­holism. She was an ama­teur cel­list and a house­wife, but her emo­tion­al insta­bil­i­ty often led to errat­ic behav­ior. One such inci­dent, involv­ing a fright­en­ing dis­play of fire caused by rub­bing alco­hol and salt, deeply dis­turbed young Camp­bell. This event marked a shift in their rela­tion­ship, as he grew fear­ful of her unpre­dictable nature. The trust that once exist­ed between them began to erode, with his moth­er retreat­ing into her­self as she became more self-con­scious of her eccen­tric­i­ties. Her with­drawn behav­ior cre­at­ed a grow­ing dis­tance between them, and the once-close bond between moth­er and son began to unrav­el. These for­ma­tive years were col­ored by a sense of emo­tion­al aban­don­ment and con­fu­sion, con­tribut­ing to Camp­bel­l’s lat­er emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal strug­gles.

In 1923, Campbell’s life took a dra­mat­ic turn when his father was assigned to Berlin, mark­ing the begin­ning of a trans­for­ma­tion in his young life. He quick­ly adopt­ed the Ger­man lan­guage and became involved in a vari­ety of social cir­cles, mak­ing new friends and ulti­mate­ly becom­ing a play­wright. He mar­ried Hel­ga Noth, the daugh­ter of a Berlin police chief, and his life seemed to take root in the Ger­man cap­i­tal. Unlike his par­ents, who fled Ger­many as World War II approached in 1939, Camp­bell remained behind. He aligned him­self with the Nazi regime, tak­ing on the role of a writer and broad­cast­er for Nazi pro­pa­gan­da. With­in the Min­istry of Pop­u­lar Enlight­en­ment and Pro­pa­gan­da, Camp­bell was rec­og­nized as an expert on Amer­i­can affairs, and his work helped shape the Nazi nar­ra­tive about Amer­i­ca. This peri­od in Berlin saw Camp­bell ful­ly immers­ing him­self in the pro­pa­gan­da machine, adding anoth­er lay­er to his iden­ti­ty as a col­lab­o­ra­tor and pro­pa­gan­dist for the regime.

The final part of Campbell’s jour­ney through this chap­ter focus­es on his cap­ture towards the end of the war. On April 12, 1945, Camp­bell was appre­hend­ed by Lieu­tenant Bernard B. O’Hare of the Amer­i­can Third Army. Dis­guised in civil­ian clothes, he was tak­en to Ohrdruf, a Nazi con­cen­tra­tion camp, where he was con­front­ed with the hor­ri­fy­ing real­i­ties of the camp sys­tem. The stark real­i­ty of the death camps, includ­ing the sight of six dead guards hang­ing from gal­lows, left an indeli­ble mark on Campbell’s psy­che. He feared he would soon meet the same fate, antic­i­pat­ing his own exe­cu­tion. A pho­to­graph tak­en dur­ing this moment cap­tured his fear and despair, becom­ing an icon­ic image that would haunt the world. This pho­to­graph, rep­re­sent­ing the com­plex­i­ties of his past and his involve­ment in the war, gained wide­spread atten­tion and was almost award­ed a Pulitzer Prize for its pow­er­ful depic­tion of human suf­fer­ing and moral ambi­gu­i­ty. This moment marked a turn­ing point for Camp­bell, cement­ing his iden­ti­ty as both a vic­tim and a per­pe­tra­tor of the war’s atroc­i­ties, reflect­ing the con­flict­ing roles he played through­out his tumul­tuous life.