If YOU ARE in the mood for something bleak, sobering, and comfortless, here is a novel for you.
Set in East Prussia (a territory now mostly within Poland and partly within Russia) in the early months of 1945, All for Nothing is about the von Globings, a family belonging to the provincial nobility. The father, Eberhardt, is in Italy with the German army, leaving the rest of the family--his attractive wife, Katharina, his adolescent son, Peter, an aunt, Peter's tutor, and a few other retainers--in their grand old family home out in the country, near the town on Mitkau.
The von Globigs are not fervent Nazis--they look down a little on the local party boss, Herr Drygalski--but they have gone along to get along. They have sold most of the land of their estate well before the novel begins, and the investments they relied on for income have been upended by the war, but they do have Eberhard's officer pay.
They are all settled into their routines when the novel opens, routines that begin to get frequently interrupted by folks coming through from the east, looking to stay a while before pressing on to Germany or other points west. Each chapter looks closely at one of the von Globigs or at some party of visitors: "the Painter," "The Violinist," and so on. The steady stream of temporary guests is due to the Russian army's progress to the east. The von Globigs are not too concerned about this, though, assuming things are bound to turn around.
By the time they realize things are not turning around and start packing to leave, the situation has deteriorated badly, society is coming unglued, and they find that nothing and no one can be relied on.
By the end...well, I'll avoid spoilers here. But just to repeat: bleak, sobering, and comfortless. And powerful in its understatement, its restraint, its telling the whole story without any melodramatic gesture at all.
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