End of a Mission

End of a Mission, written in 1968, finds Heinrich Boll trying to come to terms with his country's monstrous past in an investigation of an inexplicable crime and an even more absurd trial. Told to rack up mileage on a jeep to prepare it for inspection, a soldier drives it home--and burns it in the company of his complaisant father. Boll's account of the testimony and background of the witnesses, and their nonplussed response to the composure and satisfaction of the accused, illuminates the life of an insignificant town caught up in sudden, unreasonable importance.