Soldier X

The next day, X’s platoon goes down to the front-line trenches with their rifles to relieve another platoon. The other platoon, also mostly young teenagers, leaves, overjoyed, while X and his friends settle into the stinking, muddy, trash-littered trench, knowing a Russian assault could happen any moment. Dobelmann begins to give them a summary of the danger, but before he can finish, several veterans jump into the trench and begin stocking it with bombs and machine guns.

Dobelmann asks how many of them have used a Panzerfaust, or rocket launcher, and learns only two of them were ever taught how, to his horror. He teaches them and then corrects their incorrect idea of how to throw a grenade, alongside other things that were overlooked during their abbreviated basic training. He tells them to treat their rifle like they would treat a woman and then tells them that their most important weapon is their mind, which can save their lives better than anything else—they must not, more than anything else, panic. If all else fails, he tells them to play dead.

That evening, the boys begin to wonder about Dobelmann and one of the other soldiers explains that he was once a philosophy teacher with a wife and three kids, but after a grenade ruined his face, he had someone tell his family he was dead to avoid the shame. He re-enlisted and is now focused entirely on the war.

Sometime before dawn, a barrage of bullets and explosions comes through—the assault has begun. The boys react in terror, but it ends quickly. They think nobody is hurt until a small boy, Willi, holds up his arm, which has been blown off into a stump. Jakob screams for a medic.

The boys repair the damage to the trenches and send Willi off to be buried. They eat what they can; X’s memories grow foggy as time stretches on and the surroundings become more surreal. A blast knocks X out of the trench, and he wakes up tasting blood and apples. X is dragged around for a while and comes to while sitting near a wall, with Hals sitting beside him; he is confused for a moment when Hals leans and puts his head on his shoulder. He then realizes that Hals is warm and wet with blood—he is dead. X holds him and sobs, trying to wake him up, but Dobelmann grabs him and drags him out of his grief. Dobelmann brings him to the other boys, Hals’s rifle in hand, and they watch as the Russian forces advance toward them.

The Russian infantry bursts out of the fog and attacks the front lines. The German soldiers shoot repeatedly, and some go down, but more keep coming. The barbed wire catches the infantry, but they keep going. Russian bullets shoot down soldiers around X and kick up dirt. As the Russians jump into shell holes for cover, Jakob explodes them, sending Russians flying. For a moment, the battle stops, and sunshine breaks through the fog; while it is beautiful for a moment, it just illuminates the scattered bodies. X turns and looks at Hal’s body, eyes catching on the shrapnel still hanging around his neck, and trembles.

X remembers his single fistfight when he was a child with a boy named Gus, specifically focusing on the adrenaline he had felt during the fight and the complete lack of it after. He connects this to his feeling as the fight stops, as he feels completely drained and sick. He wants to rest and hopes nothing more is needed of him, but as he thinks this, Dobelmann notes that they will face even worse things now. X and the others check their dwindling ammunition; Oskar swears as tanks begin to appear on the horizon.

The world becomes a haze of explosions and detonations. X falls and sees a boot with a disconnected foot in it, belonging to Fassnacht, the boy who had been excited to see war. Dobelmann calls for them to fire at the men walking around the tanks, and they shoot and throw grenades. They shoot Panzerfausts at the tanks, but the tanks begin to bear down on them, destroying the trenches and the men inside. Oskar runs in terror, getting shot down, and X fails to shoot a Russian soldier right in front of him when he sees the man’s face. X runs as well but gets speared with shrapnel through the knee. He watches in terror as a tank rears up and falls toward the trench where he is lying.

X is hit in the head and falls unconscious. He comes to and sees the tank hovering above him; his head and leg are injured, and he hears people shouting in Russian around him. In the piles of bodies near him are Germans and Russians, including a blond Russian boy.

He hears German pleading and then gunshots and quickly realizes that a Russian soldier is shooting any German survivors and stabbing the dead to ensure they are not faking it. He hears more voices demanding that the tank above X be repaired; they come close, so X plays dead. X quickly realizes that he will be discovered soon. After the men leave, X struggles to think about what to do and how to get home. He wants someone to help, but there is nobody left.

X finally produces an idea to save himself. He takes the clothes from the blond Russian boy and swaps them with his own, dressing the Russian body in his clothes, which is difficult. He even rips the Russian’s clothes to mimic the injury to his knee—a bolt of steel protruding just beneath his kneecap. The men return but only pay attention to the tank; when they leave again, X hurriedly finishes the job and takes the boy’s meager possessions and identification card, which he cannot read.

X emerges from under the tank, looking for Jakob or Dobelmann among the dead but not seeing them. He uses a Russian rifle for support and wanders among the piles of dead. He finds an injured Russian soldier and tells him that he is very dizzy, then sits down; he watches as other Russian soldiers squabble over the German possessions they have found. He realizes the battle has been thoroughly lost, but other than the loss of his friends, he does not care.

X tries to remove the steel bar from his leg but cannot. Russian soldiers run toward him, and he stands, afraid, but waves at them; they wave back. A German soldier begins to crawl, still alive, and sees X; X does not realize until too late that the soldier sees him as an enemy. The soldier lifts a pistol and fires, hitting X in the side. A Russian soldier shoots the German soldier and supports X as he crumples, promising him that he will make it.