Zhivye i Myortvye plot
Iwan Sinzow, the correspondent of a military newspaper, has just gone on holiday at the start of the war. He immediately returns to his unit stationed in Belarus. However, he fails to find his editors and instead follows a regiment that continues to fight and is eventually surrounded by the enemy. With Serpilin as regimental and divisional commander, the survivors break out of the cauldron. But while being transported inland, the soldiers are ambushed by a German tank attack and the men become dispersed. Sinzow, the military doctor Tanja Owsjannikowa and the soldier Petja Solotarjow stumble towards a house in the woods. The seriously ill Tanja has to be left behind and in the further fighting Sinzow is badly injured.