Career-soldier Wilhelm, his pacifist younger brother Friedhelm, and their friends Charlotte, Viktor and Greta say farewell in the summer of 1941 in Berlin, with the promise to meet again after the war.

Wilhelm and his brother have been ordered to the eastern front; Charlotte will join them as a nurse in a field hospital there. In Berlin, Greta makes a name for herself as a singer, with the help of a high-ranking party official. Her Jewish boyfriend, Viktor is despatched to a concentration camp in the east. Little do they know how much the unfathomable experiences, deprivations and terrors of the war will change them. It is the experiences of friendship and betrayal, belief and disappointment, illusion and insight, guilt and responsibility that will change their lives forever.