The Damned of Magdeburg' is more a study of how characters behave when living under an impending apocalypse. The city of Magdeburg has been pegged a target by the Catholic forces of the Holy Roman Empire for its refusal to attend the Regensburg Summit called for by the Emperor Ferdinand and its failure to comply with the Edict of Restitution demanded by him. It is besieged by, first Pappenheim and then Tilly, commanders of the Catholic League, in retaliation for their omission, and the book centers around the lives of the main personages residing within Magdeburg and how they respond and cope with the crisis. The book addresses the issue of each person's moral conduct; they commit one or more of the seven deadly sins as preached by the Church so that they suffer from guilt complexes that makes them believe their impending doom may be merited by them. The lives of the main characters center around these complexities and are interwoven into the fabric of their behavior and conduct towards each other and themselves.