Broch wrote his trilogy The Sleepwalkers between 1928 and 1932. The era of Wilhelm II, from 1888 to 1918, is depicted and analyzed in a cross-sectional manner across the three novels, where not only the realism of the representation but also the subtle psychological portrayal stands out. In a method Broch refers to as "extended naturalism," the rational and irrational levels of psychological experience are traced in their interrelation and exemplified through representatives of various social classes of Wilhelminism. "A significant mind attempts in this novel trilogy to critically interpret the current illness of our culture, the decay of values, in symbols. This serious work is a glimpse into a chaos that contains the seeds of a new humanity." Hermann Hesse.