It deals with the violent and sadistic tendencies of a group of boys at an Austrian military academy at the beginning of the 20th century.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Thomas Törless (Mathieu Carrière) arrives at the academy and learns how Anselm von Basini (Marian Seidowsky) has been caught stealing by fellow student Reiting (Fred Dietz).

Also partaking in these sessions is Beineberg (Bernd Tischer), with whom Törless visits Bozena (Barbara Steele), the local prostitute.

After Basini is humiliated and suspended upside down in the school gym because of one of Reiting's intrigues, Törless realises intellectually that the other boys are simply cruel.

Henze, who came of age during the war, was prominent enough in this introspection by virtue of his left-political activism in the arts to feel driven to expatriation from Germany.