It is summer, 1944 and the survivors of the decimated SS Assault Regiment Wotan are withdrawn from Russia to stiffen the ranks of the newest SS division: the 'Baby Division' made up of 20,000 teenage volunteers from the Hitler Youth. Kuno von Dodenburg, commander of the Wotan, doesn't like his new assignment one bit. When the Allies attack, the 'babies', he thinks, will be slaughtered. There is a way out. The generals ask him to participate in their daring plan to assassinate Hitler and sue for a separate peace with the Western Allies. It is a moral dilemma that von Dodenburg cannot resolve. In the end he takes his 'old hares', his veterans, and the 'babies' into battle against the invasion forces, knowing that there is no hope for them. Fate has already decided they will die before they have begun to live.