[1][2] It was first serialized in the German newspaper Vossische Zeitung between December 1930 and January 1931, and published in book form in April 1931.

Set a few weeks after the end of All Quiet on the Western Front, the novel deals with the fall of the German Empire[2] and details the experience of young men in Germany who have returned from the trenches of World War I and are trying to integrate back into civilian life.

Its most salient feature is the main characters' pessimism about contemporary society which, they feel, is morally bankrupt because it has allegedly caused the war and apparently does not wish to reform itself.

For example in one scene, a group of student veterans are forced to endure a corny speech by their professor who eulogizes their fallen comrades as having entered a “long sleep beneath the green grasses.” The student veterans mock the professor for his naive platitudes with one, Westerholt shouting, “in the mud of shell holes they are lying, knocked rotten, ripped in pieces, gone down into the bog—Green grasses!"

[2] Under the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, the book will enter the public domain in the United States in 2027.