A classic of anti-war literature. Dieter Noll, celebrated as the "Remarque of World War II," depicts the journey of young men of his generation. Eager for adventure, they enthusiastically march off to war. After humiliating drills, endless nights of exhaustion, and fear at the anti-aircraft gun, they experience complete disillusionment and moral collapse in the inferno of the retreat battles. Spring 1943. "There is no adventure, only war," explains Werner Holt, hoping like the other high school students that they will finally be drafted to the anti-aircraft units, that the war will truly begin so they can stake their lives like the robber Karl Moor and no longer have to worry about botched Latin assignments. The sixteen-year-olds do not have to wait long before they find themselves on the barracks yard. The adventure has begun, the adventure of war with danger and women.