In the early 20th century, nestled within the heart of Central Europe, lay the Federal Republic of Germany. The air carried the scent of coal smoke and horse-drawn carriages, while the streets echoed with the multilingual chatter of a burgeoning metropolis.

In its capital, Berlin—a city of dazzling allure yet marred by its dark, grimy slums—came the cries of a newborn named Michael Kaiser. This was a place teeming with hooligans and prostitutes, where people merely subsisted on the remnants of what society left behind, the cobblestone streets slippery with the grime of urban life.

Kaiser never knew his mother. Shortly after bringing him into the world, she left for the glamorous life of an actress, abandoning both him and his father. His father was there, but unlike the beautiful woman who'd given birth to him, he wasn't much of a sight—just an archetypal drunk, a wretched man whose breath perpetually reeked of cheap schnapps and regret.

Drunk on cheap booze, violent, and lacking money or education. His father was a man of ruin, sinking daily into the depths of liquor and gambling, quickly racking up a mountain of debt. Whether nursing a drink or cashing in a slap, the man only had uses for his hands in the filthiest ways. He begged for money with those dirty hands, a sight Kaiser found utterly ridiculous as a child, watching from the shadowy corners of their squalid apartment.

This was where Kaiser spent his boyhood—under the constant specter of starvation, never knowing when the gnaw of hunger might claim him next. Obeying his father’s barks to steal from local shops and enduring beatings when his old man was on a bender; it was a wretched life on reflection. But eventually, Kaiser tore away from such a miserable existence to rise to the rank of an officer in the German army.