When Hitler ordered the north of Nazi-occupied Norway to be destroyed in a scorched earth retreat in 1944, everything of potential use to the Soviet enemy was destroyed. Fifty thousand people were forcibly evacuated—thousands more fled to hide in caves in sub-zero temperatures. The author crossed northern Norway gathering scorched earth stories: of refugees starving on remote islands, fathers shot dead just days before the war ended, towns burned to the ground. With extracts from the Nuremberg trials of the generals who devastated northern Norway and modern reflections on the mental scars that have passed down generations, this is a journey into the heart of a brutal conflict set in a landscape of intense natural beauty.