In the novel first published in English translation in 1934, Leo Lania tells a story of the interwar period and the Weimar Republic through various fates. The central focus is on the life paths of Kurt Rosenberg and Esther Mendel, who first meet as teenagers in occupied Ukraine. While World War I leads Rosenberg, as a sergeant, to Borutsch, Esther grows up there as the daughter of a poor tailor. She flees with her parents from the pogroms to Berlin, where Rosenberg lives in safe conditions. In Berlin, they experience the time of inflation, the assassination of Rathenau, and the economic stabilization of the "Roaring Twenties," during which Kurt and Esther reunite and come of age. Lania provides a comprehensive insight into the state of mind in Germany during the interwar period and attempts to illustrate it.