Andreas is the protagonist of this novel; he is a German soldier who, at the end of 1943, is assigned to the Eastern Front. He travels by train eastward with other soldiers. He calculates that he will die in the region of Galicia. The book is written in the first person; Böll was a soldier in World War II and went through situations like those described. The realism with which he writes is that of someone who has seen and lived through it.
The train is heading towards its destination; beside him are two other soldiers: one is sleeping, and the other is drinking alcohol. The protagonist tries to pray; sometimes he prays for the young woman he saw in France for a moment and whose eyes he remembers vividly. Other times, he prays for the Jews; he also asks God for the gift of crying with repentance, something he hasn’t done since the beginning of the war. He has witnessed very harsh situations; he mentions them without going into details. He sees his fellow countrymen who will die for something they no longer believe in. He thinks about the cruelty of war and the predictable end. He tries to prepare himself for a death that he considers very near.
The train arrives on time at its destination; from there, others depart to various fronts. His companions think about food and pleasure, but he reflects on love and the beauty of the world: having listened to some musical pieces moves him to break the internal crust accumulated in the battlefields. The book was published after the war. The author had fought in France and on the Eastern Front. He survived the war and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1972.