Written when Ingeborg Bachmann was only eighteen, The Honditsch Cross—her second-longest completed work of prose after Malina—is a historical novella set during the final days of the Napoleonic occupation of Austria in 1813.

When Franz, a young theology student, returns from Vienna to his family home in Carinthia, he finds French troops stationed there. The commanding officer is a despot who has been exploiting and terrorizing Franz's family and friends. Franz is immediately flung into the center of the conflict, whipped in different directions, and forced to choose between defending his homeland, following his own physical desires, or pursuing his theological studies.

In this gripping work, Bachmann begins to explore themes that will preoccupy her for the rest of her writing career: complex notions of nationality and patriotism, the roles and rights of women in patriarchal societies, the meaningless destruction of war and its aftermath, and the bitter moments of disillusionment that lead to intellectual maturity.