The commander, Major Bolaños, requests his commissar, the German Heinrich Witting, to select five volunteers who will remain in the trenches and hold off the enemy, while the battalion retreats across the Ebro River.

Witting chooses the Frenchman Pierre, the German Willi, the Pole Oleg, the Spaniard José and the Bulgarian Dimitri.

Director Frank Beyer told an interviewer that he was drawn to making Five Cartridges due to it having "three dimensions: a political subject, a thrilling story and a dialog-poor, mostly picturesque narrative."

[3] Beyer, composer Joachim Werzlau, set designer Alfred Hirschmeier and cinematographer Günter Marczinkowsky were all awarded the Heinrich Greif Prize on 13 May 1961.

[4] Stefan Deines wrote that it was not surprising that Pierre - whose country, France, was the only one among those represented at Five Cartridges in which the communist party opted not to try and take power - was the one who left the group, and subsequently killed.

They also noted other communist political influences on the plot, like when José chalks a message for the nationalist soldiers in which he asks them why they are fighting against their working-class brothers.