Oskar Matzerath is a very unusual boy. Refusing to leave the womb until promised a tin drum by his mother, Agnes, Oskar is reluctant to enter a world he sees as filled with hypocrisy and injustice, and vows on his third birthday to never grow up. Miraculously, he gets his wish. As the Nazis rise to power in Danzig, Oskar wills himself to remain a child, beating his tin drum incessantly and screaming in protest at the chaos surrounding him.
Annette von Droste-Hülshoff tells her friend Levin Schücking about her recently completed story Die Judenbuche and begins by reading from the manuscript. The protagonist of the actual story is Friedrich Mergel, whose father Hermann Mergel has a fatal accident under a beech tree on a stormy night while returning from a wedding abroad. Friedrich, who earns his living as a cowherd, is adopted by his uncle Simon, who uses him for his obscure business.
The adventures of a group of German truckers on jobs all over the world.
