Heinrich Böll - It Was the Time of the Train

This short novel by Heinrich Böll, who lived through World War II as an infantryman and came to the conclusion that nothing could be more absurd than war and militarism, was published in 1949. In the days when the German army begins to collapse on all fronts, a young German soldier named Andreas receives the order to join the front. Andreas, who has an obsession that he is going to certain death, meets a young Polish girl at a dating house during the hours when his train stops at a way station. As much a forced soldier Andreas is, the young girl is such a forced hired girl. The relationship between the two turns from a sexual encounter to a real love. Meanwhile, the hour of death that Andreas accepted as his destiny is approaching...