Central European historiography is known for several biographies and memoirs of writers enslaved in Turkish captivity during the expansion of the Ottoman Empire who spent several years as slaves or prisoners, eagerly waiting for redemption or a chance to escape. These memoirs are usually full of descriptions of suffering and humiliation and often portray cruelty and poverty in an excessive manner with a clear propagandistic aim: to rise against Ottomans and their conquering policy.

Markus Krischer's book analyzes the centuries-old conflict of Christian Europe with the Muslim Ottoman Empire at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the early modern period from the perspective of the Turkish Janissary, Anton Achmet, a Muslim who took part in the siege of the imperial capital of Vienna with the army of Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa in 1683. After the defeat of the Turkish army, he was captured and spent a year in a sort of juvenile prison. He converted to Christianity, adopted the sacrament of marriage, and at the end of his secular pilgrimage, died and was buried as a Christian. He had an interesting and adventurous life. He was one of the lucky ones who survived the brutal battle for Vienna. As a janissary or member of the Ottoman elite troops, he was apparently in the middle of the fighting, yet he managed to avoid the fate of nearly sixty-thousand Muslims who remained on the battlefield and whose bodies were ultimately sent on the Danube River toward their home beyond the Black Sea. The “living trophies” of the victorious battle traveled along with the Turkish horses, flags, faience, art objects, and carpets to the households of the victorious. Achmet got to the Bavarian prince in just this way, becoming one of three prisoners of Kurfürst Max Emanuel. There were 303 other prisoners of similar fate. Thanks to the preserved book of hearings from the reformatory, there is information about their fate, including how they got from the Black Sea via Belgrade and Vienna to Bavarian Munich.

Achmet's life was fundamentally changed there. According to the register, in the summer of 1684 two Turks were baptized—both with the surname Achmet. One of them took the name Franz and the other was written down as Anton. His patron was none other than Kurfürst Max Emanuel. But what was most important was that both Turks gained their freedom and were allowed to leave the reform school thanks to their baptism; they had stopped being considered “dangerous.” Anton entered the service of his patron and became a stretcher carrier; he then progressed and began to care for the mules. This regular income enabled him to marry a Christian woman and to become the father of Christian children. He accompanied his master during his journeys as well as when Kurfürst was forced to stay outside the principality. The Kurfürst, an ambitious soldier and commander after the crusade against the Turks, held the post of governor of the Spanish Netherlands in Brussels and, after the death of the Spanish king Charles II, he was involved in the fights for the Spanish succession. He looked after the royal throne on which he imagined his son, but this dream vanished after he was forced to spend more than a decade of exile in France.

Markus Krischer is a journalist who has worked for the news magazine Focus for more than twenty years. With the ease of an experienced author and reporter, he accurately and succinctly describes the most important facts and the story of the convert, situating it in the background of historical events. He illustrates the situation with relevant micro-historical stories in which he advocates talking about his hero and the environment in which he lived.

There is a place for descriptions of the fighting, but also for the unusual fate of Muslims, who were kidnapped or were lost in the Christian world. Although the contemporary propaganda liked to describe the cruelty with which the Ottomans handled their captives, the preserved sources indicate that the Turkish prisoners also suffered greatly, and many did not survive. During the long wait for a ransom, which almost never came, they were forced to do hard physical work. Although they were paid, it was not enough to survive. They were provided with bread and a little lard and salt flavored with grass and herbs, which was a theme in a variety of anecdotes. Conversion was Anton Achmet's only option to save his life and to live in more dignified conditions. It was very difficult to overcome the distrust of the inhabitants of Munich, but even today, almost three and a half centuries later, the situation is not much better in contemporary European society.

Der Mann aus Babadag is pleasant and instructive reading, thanks to the author's excellent style and his ability to capture the most interesting and important facts. It also discloses for its readers an almost unknown chapter from the period of the wars against the Turks and events in the hinterland, far away from the direct fighting.