In Vienna on the evening of 12 February 1934, after the outbreak of the civil war, which was decided within a very short time, five friends and social democrats set out to defend a world that no longer exists and to oppose the "new order of Europe". One of them, Bruno Schindler, tells of this futile enterprise. He himself escaped to the Soviet Union and returned to Vienna after the war, where he traced the fates of his friends: some perished, others joined Hitler, a few managed to escape abroad. Schindler himself returns to his city strange, homeless and hopeless.The rediscovery of a masterpiece of Austrian post-war literature: a highly political, moving novel, a panorama of Austrian history.