And Where Were You, Adam

Hitler's Wehrmacht is broken and demoralized, the end of the war is imminent--but still soldiers are rounded up and sent to the front, Jews are "evacuated," guns are fired, shells explode. In this novel BÖll paints war as a series of idiocies, accidents, and coincidences related only through death

Corporal Feinhals appears in the shadows of the story as he marches to the front, is wounded, falls in love with a Jewish schoolteacher, is hauled to the front again, helps build then immediately destroy a bridge, and slowly makes his way home. Ilona, the schoolteacher, is commanded to sing for a music-loving camp officer and sends him into a rage with the All Saints Litany; meanwhile Quartermaster Finck's most heroic act, carrying a suitcase of wine to the front, is his end, while Lieutenant Greck's stomach cramps prove a deeper torment than the shells exploding around him. As characters appear and vanish, BÖll's snapshots expose the complexity of entire lives eclipsed by war.

"[BÖll's] strength lies in his ability to see ordinary people in clear relation to their pain and sorrow. . . . The futility and senselessness of their dying is brought home with anger and compassion." --Times Literary Supplement