Prologue

It is still an unresolved question why it happened. But, literally in the closing moments of World War II, when the American and Soviet armies converged in central Germany, the impossible occurred. A stretch of German territory with roughly 500,000 inhabitants in the southwestern reaches of Saxony, from the foothills of the relatively industrialized Erzgebirge all the way to the borders with Czechoslovakia, roughly halfway between Chemnitz and Karlovy Vary, remained unoccupied by either the American or Soviet armies for more than five weeks, in some cases up to seven weeks. From 8 May 1945 until mid-June or even later, two Landkreise...