The major in command gives strict orders that no one must go into this city full of "deserters, revolutionaries, and defeatists", even though most of the men are from Berlin, but in response to the pleading of Private Hartmann, who had saved his life in the trenches, young Lieutenant Prätorius grants passes on the men's solemn promise to return in time: "I have your word of hono[u]r that you will return and fulfill your duty in this critical hour of the fatherland.

Infantryman Ullrich Hagen is a composer; he visits his music teacher, who will shortly be performing one of his works and begs him to be true to his talent rather than throwing his life away in a futile cause.

Private Hartmann, who is middle-aged, surprises his young wife, Anna, who has replaced him at his work driving a tram; she begs him to stay with her and their four children rather than returning to a war which is already lost.

The fourth, Infantryman Emil Sasse is a "leftist intellectual" who was cursing the notion of 'heroic death' and announcing his intention to desert in the opening scenes of the film; he finds his girlfriend Fritzi printing anti-war leaflets.

Hartmann loses track of time, but his family all pile into a friend's lorry and race the train to the next station; the lieutenant spots the speeding vehicle and all the men are back as they promised.

Prätorius' own girlfriend Inge (Ingeborg Theek) is a virtuous nurse and is contrasted with Fritzi and the other Communist women and with Vera Georgi the sculptress (Ruth Störmer), a self-centred career woman.

[8] UFA promoted the film aggressively, calling it "a grand song of comradeship ... born in the storm of steel of the front, meeting its greatest test in the lunatic asylum of a sick, politically incited metropolis.