Few tell German history as well as Klaus Kordon. 1870, the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War. A time closely linked to the fate of the Jacobi family: August, a 19-year-old high school student, volunteers to go to the front, hoping to see his great love Nelly again soon. His sister Rieke dreams of becoming a painter and observes the changes in people's lives with her sketchpad; little brother Köbbe and his friends experience this time as an adventure. Kordon skillfully and variably narrates the unification of the German states into the German Empire, the megalomania of the founding era, and the beginnings of social democracy.