Despite being decorated with a German Service Cross Willi Wegler is inwardly sickened by both
Hitler's genocidal war and the complicity of his fellow citizens in Third Reich brutalities.
Wracked by guilt he suddenly betrays his country in a profound gesture of protest and
self-sacrifice: during the course of an air raid he fashions an enormous arrow out of hay in
an open field then ignites it as a flaming signal to direct British bombers to the site of the
factory where he works - an act that cannot fail to precipitate a series of dramatic events.
The Cross and the Arrow - first published in 1944 during the latter stages of the war it
describes - portrays a man's struggle to retain his dignity in defiance of state-sponsored
cruelty and explores the role and responsibility of the individual in the face of tragic global
events. In its examination of an enemy's complex heroism it provides a life-affirming message
of humanity's ultimate capacity for good.
