65 years in the drawer - today a bestseller 'Der Überläufer' is Siegfried Lenz' second novel, written in 1951, which, although completed and revised by the author several times, remained unpublished until 2016. At the time of its writing it was rejected by the publisher for political reasons. Defection to the Soviets as a novel hero was not appropriate during the Cold War. A great discovery, an impressive novel about the eternal conflict between duty and conscience.