
A high school teacher's experiment to demonstrate to his students what life is like under a dictatorship spins horribly out of control when he forms a social unit with a life of its own.

The story follows a group of German soldiers, from their Italian R&R in the summer of 1942 to the frozen steppes of Soviet Russia and ending with the battle for Stalingrad.

Two police detectives, a grizzled veteran and one fresh-faced rookie, hunt a ritualistic serial killer murdering people with tattoos and skinning them.