On vacation with his girlfriend, Ingeborg, the German war-game champion Udo Berger returns to a small town on the Costa Brava where he spent the summers of his childhood. Soon they meet another vacationing German couple, Charly and Hanna, who introduce them to a band of locals--the Wolf, the Lamb, and El Quemado--and to the darker side of life in a resort town. Late one night, Charly disappears without a trace, and Udo's well-ordered life is thrown into upheaval; when Ingeborg and Hanna return to their lives in Germany, he refuses to leave the hotel. Soon, he and El Quemado are enmeshed in a round of Third Reich, his favorite World War II strategy game, and Udo discovers that the game's consequences may be all too real. Written in 1989 and found among Roberto Bolan+ёo's papers after his death, The Third Reich is a stunning exploration of memory and violence.