Lothar-Günther Buchheim’s novel tells about a combat campaign of a German submarine during the Second World War. The central idea of the book is that people, by the will of fate and the times, are placed in a situation where they must kill in order to live. This is a harsh, dynamic work in which every character is a full-fledged Personality. In minute detail, the author shows the routine of submarine warfare, the everydayness of death in war, and recreates the suffocating atmosphere of the submarine in a realistic way.
Out of 40,000 German submariners, 30,000 did not return home.