The engine room workers awaited the signal for lunch. They worked less intensely, adjusting stools, straightening up, feeling their coffee, trying to clean their dirty, oily hands with kerosene; in short, they made all the usual preparations for lunch.

The foreman began his last stroll around. As he passed one of the engines, he perked up. The transmission shaft must be burning; a slight hiss gave it away, immediately confirmed by a thin cloud of steam. To save the shaft, you either had to grease it right away or else switch off the engine. The foreman checked the clock. “Three minutes to twelve.” Should he turn off the engine? No! - In three minutes, the problem would solve itself. "Müller!” he called, "come here a moment, bring a ladder and oil can and lubricate this bearing." Then he went to his "den" to warm up his food. Müller was irritated at being disturbed just before the break, when at any moment his wife would come by with his two children and his lunch. At three minutes to twelve! Irritated, to put it mildly, Müller climbed the ladder and cursed under his breath. No sooner had he reached the last rung then the siren howled. What a terrible sound, but what a longed for sign—compressed air howling its cry of vengeance into the world. For the worker, this is music and symbol all in one.

Müller looked toward the door, the sullen expression gone from his face. He smiled. The people he loved most were there, always cheering him up, smiling and happy to see him, but taken aback and frightened when they saw him hanging up there in the transmission. “Don't be afraid,” he called. His daughters smiled and stretched out their little arms. “We'll catch you, Daddy, in case you fall,” they bantered. “Daddy” moved sharply, but the ladder slid to one side and he lost his balance. Looking for a foothold, he grabbed the flywheel.

A single jerk, then a soft sigh as if something very regrettable was escaping from his chest. The machine had devoured him. The belt bound him to the flywheel, whose form he now took on, a hellish rhythm of quick revolutions. His leg hit the shaft with each rotation. Brains and blood were everywhere. His wife screamed more terribly than a siren, and in desperation attempted to stop the engine. The other workers came rushing, horrified, to the place of the accident.

The engine stopped shaking, and the belt groaned to a halt. His head crushed, it tilted down toward the workplace. One eye dangled from a long, slimy tendon next to his blood-smeared mouth, a cherry held gently by teeth. His leg hung from the transmission like a sweater in a wardrobe.

This terrible scene was cut short when the wife fainted, a silence broken only by the quiet crying of the children as they clung to their mother. An attempt was made to loosen the body, but the belt held its victim so tight that it had to be cut. Only then could the dead man be taken down and placed on a stretcher. The doctor called to the scene had only a few formalities to complete.

When the wife regained consciousness, she was so weak that she again broke down whimpering near the stretcher. Her daughters pressed against her, also crying. She repeated over and over: “My God! What now? What now?” How sad and infinitely cruel this all was. Why these accidents, why all this, why these three minutes, these three minutes to twelve? Couldn't the engine have been turned off earlier, a wretched three minutes earlier? Three minutes set against a sea of blood and tears. A human being—a man who smiled, who loved, and this woman—how she cared and how she loved, and these children’s laughter—these little outstretched arms, calling out: “Daddy, Daddy!” All this outweighs the three minutes, more, outweighs the entire world. But at three minutes to twelve, it had been too early to turn off the engine.

A law governs here, a harsh law that knows nothing of the real world: profit! It neither hears the whimpering of the wife nor sees the tears of the children. It knows nothing of this Golgotha of labour.

Originally published in: Die Rote Fahne. Central Organ of the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, Die Treibriemen!, Vol. 7, No. 18, March 21, 1924.