At 4:17 in the afternoon on September 9th, 1944, Gerriter Ernst Hoffman stood at the base of Malum Cove in Yorkshire, England, two hundred sixty feet below the limestone cliff face. He stared at what he believed was impossible. For fourteen months, he had been a prisoner of war. He had walked eleven miles through the Yorkshire Dales. He had argued with his fellow prisoners for hours about whether to continue. And now, whispering to himself in German, he repeated the same phrase over and over, because the geological formation in front of him contradicted everything his commanding officer at Camp 174 Harragot had taught him about British propaganda.
At 4:17 in the afternoon on September 9th, 1944, Gerriter Ernst Hoffman stood at the base of Malum Cove in…