Through the distinctive prism of his extraordinary life, Claus Hackenberger illuminates those small but significant moments we all encounter in this world we share.

Like a diamond, with clarity and brilliance, Search for Light reflects the man and varied facets of the life we know. In beautifully crafted prose and poetry, Claus Hackenberger, author of A Long Walk and the river, traverses the ever-changing landscape of the human condition…the joy of discovery, despair of loneliness, warmth of intimacy, fear of uncertainty, wonder of the world we inhabit. In Search for Light, each reader will be inspired to muse, meditate, laugh, love, and ultimately, embrace life in all its imperfection.

Meet Paul Berck. A handsome and engaging young man with a ready smile.  Paul is intelligent, kind, creative, industrious, and decent. He is also a member of the Hitler Youth. Growing up as Paul does, in post-World War I Germany, Nazi party allegiance is not a choice but a duty. As he matures, Paul finds himself one of the millions of German young people cajoled and coerced into serving the Third Reich, eventually sent off at age seventeen to fight in a war already lost. When he is captured by the enemy, Paul’s long walk begins. In A Long Walk, Claus Hackenberger has penned an extraordinarily compelling story based on his own experiences during World War II. As we travel with Paul down a dark and dangerous road–from a less than idyllic childhood to the horrors of the battlefield to slave labor in the prison camps and, finally, to an uncertain life in a debilitated Germany–we become eyewitnesses to one of the most tumultuous times in recent history. But A Long Walk offers more than a German soldier’s chronicle of World War II. A poet at heart, the author employs his adopted language in startling ways, bringing beauty, insight, even humor to what might otherwise be a grim tale. A Long Walk represents a victory of the human spirit, a celebration of the irrepressible goodness and resourcefulness that lives on in the hearts of brave men and women. It is a walk worth taking.