An army war school during the WWII: first Lieutenant Krafft has a strong sense of justice. This has often brought him into disrepute with his previous superiors and he has been transferred several times as a result. With his new position in an officer's school, he hopes to survive the war and tries to avoid further conflicts. However, Krafft is entrusted with an investigation by his general - a supervising officer has been blown to pieces by an explosive charge during an engineer exercise. Although the chief field judge rules the man's death an accident, Krafft reconstructs the events and proves that it was a case of murder. Ensign Hochbauer, who was in the party's favor, is said to have deliberately shortened the fuse during the explosive exercise, as a result of which the supervising officer was unable to get to safety in time.