Friedrich Mergel grows up in a Westphalian village where immorality and lawlessness are the order of the day. He succumbs to pride and gets caught in a whirlwind of violence and crime from which there seems to be no escape. After a heinous crime, Friedrich is forced to flee. The novella, published in 1842, is perhaps the most famous work of the German poetess Annette von Droste-Hülshoff. The "Judenbuche" is now understood not only as a crime story but, above all, as a study of social conditions.