In 1942 Friedrich Weimer, a 17 year-old boy is invited to an elitist school of the Nazis, the "Napola Allenstein", when observed during a boxing fight in Berlin Wedding. He passes the entrance examination, but his parents do not allow him to go. So he copies his father's signature and starts the hard education at Allenstein.
Soon Friedrich makes friends with Albrecht Stein, son of a "Gauleiter". Albrecht is a sensitive boy, who wants to be a writer an thus does not fit in with the picture of young men educated at this school.
One weekend Friedrich accompanies Albrecht to the Stein's house, where Albrecht's father makes the two boys fight each other in front of drunken Nazis. Of course Friedrich is the stronger one.
Shortly after this event the boys get the mission to hunt and shoot some Russian refugees in the woods. The boys obey, but have to realize that they have been killing children. Albrecht wants to save a little boy, but his father shoots this child.
One day later the class gets the task to write an essay on the role of the winter in German myths and Albrecht takes his chance to criticize his father. Gauleiter Stein threatens his son with sending him to the Eastern front. Friedrich does not know about these developments, as he is sitting in a cell after a fight with another boy.
The next morning the boys have to dive half-naked through an icecold and frozen lake. Friedrich has to see how Albrecht commits suicide by just letting himslef sink down.
But the leaders of the school do not notice this event as important, as there is a boxing championship to win back the goblet and Friedrich is the hope of Allenstein.
At first it seems as if he would win, but when he realizes for what and for whom he is fighting, he gives up and is knocked out. After this he has to leave the Napola.