[1] As the novel opens, Wadzek, owner of a factory that produces steam engines, is locked in a struggle with his more powerful rival Rommel, whose much larger company manufactures turbines.

Financially and spiritually broken, Wadzek returns to Berlin and with Schneemann attempts to turn himself in at a police station, where they learn that no warrant has even been issued for their arrest.

The novel ends aboard a ship bound for America, Wadzek eloping with Gaby, an old acquaintance and erstwhile lover of Rommel's, to begin a new life.

[6] Döblin's refusal to make Wadzek a tragic figure, as well as the novel's thematization and satire of tragedy, earned the praise of a young Bertolt Brecht, who declared, "Ich liebe das Buch.

[8] By his own account, Döblin wrote Wadzeks Kampf mit der Dampfturbine "in one go" from August to December 1914, at which time he had to begin work as a military doctor near the western front in Sarreguemines.