The Young Lions tells the stories of three soldiers, one German and two American, in World War II. Though they are continents apart when the novel begins (Christian Diestl is in Austria, Michael Whitacre is in New York, and Noah Ackerman is in Santa Monica), the tide of events brings their lives together briefly and fatally along a forest path in Germany.

The book’s almost seven hundred pages recount the progress of its three protagonists. Their lives are presented chronologically, kept parallel in time as the narrative focuses first on one protagonist, then on another. Paying little attention to the broad sweep of the war, the novel concentrates on the personal dramas and the small combats that determine each man’s fate. Christian, Michael, and Noah live out destinies shaped by their conscious decisions as well as by unconscious impulses and by the accidents or coincidences of environment. Though the particulars of their experiences differ, these three soldiers learn the common, bitter truth of combat: “You can’t let them send you any place where you don’t have friends to protect you.”

Christian’s career follows the victories and the defeats of the German army in Western Europe. He participates in the easy conquest of France and in the early success of the Afrika Corps; he savors the intoxicating spoils (women and food) of victory. When Nazi fortunes turn at the battle of El Alamein, Christian learns the brutal lessons of survival during a series of retreats. First in North Africa, then in Italy, at Normandy Beach, and finally along the Rhine, Christian fights to live despite Allied troops, German army stupidity, and the dictates of conscience. Considering going underground at the war’s end, Christian plans one last ambush of two American soldiers walking unsuspectingly through a wood.

One of them is Michael Whitacre. Hating Fascism and having enjoyed the good life (marriage to a beautiful woman, financial success, a career writing for Broadway and Hollywood), Michael patriotically enlists in the infantry when the war begins. At boot camp he finds platoon life petty and squalid; quickly, he uses well-connected friends to transfer to a noncombat unit. From this safe vantage, Michael observes the war until he is run down by a truck as he drunkenly seeks shelter during an air raid. Waiting for reassignment, he meets a soldier from his boot camp platoon. Impressed by the man’s attitude toward the war, Michael decides to accompany him to the front lines.

This soldier, the other American for whom Christian lies in wait, is Noah Ackerman. The frail son of an itinerant Jewish salesman, Noah lived miserably before the war: “Noah’s life had been wandering and disordered. Often he had been deserted, . . . left for long periods with vague, distant relatives, or, lonely and persecuted, in shabby military schools.” Then he meets Hope Plowman. She helps transform him into a poetic, passionate lover who triumphantly confronts the prejudice of her Protestant parents toward a Jewish prospective son-in-law.

Drafted into the army, Noah faces the rigors of training as well as the anti-Semitism of his platoon. He fights the ten biggest men in the company, losing nine contests physically but winning all of them psychologically. Hardened in will and body, Noah proves a brave soldier during the Normandy invasion. Wounded and evacuated, he successfully schemes to return to his platoon, where his buddies await him.

The chance encounter of three soldiers in the forest is the novel’s brief, intense climax. Christian fires, killing Noah and wounding Michael. Stalking his attacker skillfully, the anguished Michael wounds Christian with a grenade and then shoots the helpless, taunting German. Michael carries his comrade back to his friends in the platoon.