Deeply affected by the horror and the extent of human misery he encountered during World War II, Boll emerged from the experience with a sense of moral outrage toward political and social injustice as well as a deep compassion for the defenseless and the oppressed. Boll clearly professed a belief in the intrinsic responsibility of the writer to the general public and with genuine conviction was a leading and influential activist and spokesperson for a humane, democratic society.

In his early work, Boll primarily focused on the absurd futility of war and depicted in his fiction either wartime experiences or the difficulties encountered by a defeated people attempting to regain a semblance of their former lives. Gradually, however, Boll broadened his perspective to analyze both the historical development and the troubled aftermath of the war and to question, often with embittered cynicism, the direction and ideology...