Originally published in 1932 and banned by the Nazis one year later, follows a gang of young boys bound together by unwritten rules and mutual loyalty.

is the only known novel by German social worker and journalist Ernst Haffner, of whom nearly all traces were lost during the course of World War II. Told in stark, unsparing detail, Haffners story delves into the illicit underworld of Berlin on the eve of Hitlers rise to power, describing how these blood brothers move from one petty crime to the next, spending their nights in underground bars and makeshift hostels, struggling together to survive the harsh realities of gang life, and finding in one another the legitimacy denied them by society.