Three out of three million

The three friends have known each other since childhood, when they were united in a band of robbers and dreamed of escaping the cramped and oppressive conditions of their homeland to live a free life in America. Those dreams were supplanted by reason and conformity: they married, started families, and continued living the stagnant lives of their fathers, the very lives they had once rebelled against.
Now poverty is driving them out of the city. We do not know what has become of their families. Together with Hammelchen, the stray dog they’ve taken in, they set off. They no longer believe in work, and it is hard to trust fate. A future that makes life possible seems to have become a utopia.
They finally manage to make their childhood dream come true and make their way to South America. There they become entangled in a revolution and are forced to return to Europe. They try their luck in Marseille, flee on to Italy, and finally end up in an impoverished Berlin. In their search, they always find only what is already on their doorstep. The only thing they have left is their friendship.

Leonhard Frank, who in his day was considered one of the most significant voices against war and unjust conditions, published the first “unemployed novel” in 1932. He portrays his characters as driven, powerless, yet full of life, and raises the question of the individual’s influence on circumstances.