The present work examines, starting from the Thirty Years' War as Grimmelshausen's motivation for writing, how the thesis formulated in the treatise "Satyrischer Pilgram" (1667), that war contradicts nature, reason, and Christian doctrine, is implemented in fiction. Grimmelshausen narrates in his five novels (1668-1675), which address contemporary history, a daily life of war marked by violence and deceit. In doing so, he distances himself from the Western tradition of heroic epic and depicts war as a regression into barbarism. It resembles a cruel monster that fascinates with the promise of adventure, happiness, and wealth, but ultimately leads everyone and everything to ruin. For Grimmelshausen, war is neither divine punishment nor the result of satanic cunning, neither just nor unjust, but a human construct that turns victims into perpetrators and vice versa. By creating a cycle of novels, Grimmelshausen grants his male and female protagonists the right to self-representation, but undermines the claim to absolute human knowledge and beliefs through the diversity of perspectives of the partly interacting, partly polemic first-person narrators. Grimmelshausen's sardonic view of the human illusion of being able to profit from the business of Mars reveals a satirical storytelling talent that achieved extraordinary success immediately. As an anti-war epic that combines instruction and entertainment, his "Simpliciana Bellica" continued to influence and shape the German perception of modern warfare well into the 20th century.