Peter Seewald has worked as a journalist for Stern, Spiegel and the Süddeutsche Zeitung and is one of the most admired authors on religion in Germany today. His previous book of interviews with Pope Benedict Last Testament was widely reviewed in the religious and international press.

List of Illustrations
Foreword
Part one the boy
1. Easter Saturday
2. The Impediment
3. The Dreamland
4. 1933: 'Holy Year'
5. The 'German Christians'
6. With Burning Concern
7. The Calm before the Storm
8. The Seminary
9. War
10. Resistance
11. The End
Part two the master student
12. Zero Hour
13. The Scholars' Mountain
14. Guilt and Atonement
15. Upheaval in Thinking
16. The Glass Bead Game
17. Augustine
18. Storm and Stress
19. The Key Reading
20. The Major Orders
21. The Curate
22. The Examination
23. The Abyss
24. The New Heathens and the Church
Part three the council
25. A Star is Born
26. The Network
27. Council
28. The Battle Begins
29. The Genoa Speech
30. The Spin Doctor
31. The World on the Brink
32. Seven Days That Changed the Catholic Church For Ever
33. German Wave
34. Power Sources
35. In the School of the Holy Spirit
36. The Legacy
Notes
Index

By any reckoning, the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI was extraordinary, with moments of high drama. Not the least of these was his resignation from office in February 2013, the first papal resignation in 500 years.
But who was Joseph Ratzinger? In this definitive biography, based on meticulous historical research and many hours of taped interviews with his subject, Peter Seewald shows the exceptional circumstances in which the exceptionally talented son of a Bavarian policeman became the first German pope for 950 years.
In this first volume, covering the years 1927-1965, we witness Joseph Ratzinger's early days, living above his father's police station. Ratzinger came to adulthood through the years of National Socialism. Though hostile to the rise of Hitler, his family knew well about Dachau and Ratzinger himself was conscripted into the Hitler Youth. Joseph Ratzinger proved to be a man of exceptional intellectual gifts and by the time of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) he was already noted as one of the outstanding intellects present and was nominated a 'peritus' or theological expert. This was also the time of the start of his friendship with the Swiss theologian Hans Küng who was to become his nemesis.
Of his predecessor, Pope Francis has said: 'Pope Benedict was a great Pope, great for the penetration of his intelligence, great for his important contribution to theology, great for his love of the Church and human beings, great for his virtues and faith'. Even in this first volume, we begin to understand how this came to be true.