Germany, WWII: 10-year old Dagmar has just lost her beloved twin brother Doug and her family through a bomb attack. Together with a young girl who worked in the bakery of Dagmar's parents they escape to Bavaria and find shelter at some far relatives of Dagmar's family. The little girl just doesn't feel comfortable in the strange family but soon finds a good friend: Laurent, a 17-year old French alien employee. Laurent is tormented by August, the "head of the family", but cannot defend himself because as soon as he causes a conflict he will be sent into an approved school in France which is even worse. Dagmar and Laurent become very close and become almost like brother and sister, they are all they have and Dagmar even falls a bit in love with Laurent. One day August sees how Laurent hugs Dagmar, he provokes a conflict and at the end Laurent is sent back to France...
Rosamunde is a suburban girl and works as a model in Vienna. The men around her are not only fascinated by her beauty. It's also her lust for life and her unassuming, spontaneous manner which knocks them out. Dr. Zoller, a journalist, as well as Silberer and a young aristocrat are drawn to her. Because of her vain efforts not to hurt any of her admirers and to please all of them, Rosamunde breaks down under the pressure.
In this triangle melodrama, a woman shuts herself off from the world, rejects the advancement of her husband in society, and enthrones her own successor.
Financier persuades his mistress to marry a rich industrialist for his money, then discovers that he and the new wife are to be murdered by her new husband.
When they start losing family members and neighbors due to WWII and the Nazi government's policies, a quiet married couple becomes disillusioned and begins spreading leaflets against the government - a crime punishable by death.
The twelve year old Ivo has been living in Vienna with his family for three years. His father and brothers work at construction sites. Their Austrian neighbors despise the Yugoslav guest workers. Because the mother has to look after the sick grandmother at home in Croatia, Ivo runs the male household in Vienna alone. Solitude and insults from the locals make the child unhappy. And so Ivo decides on a rainy winter's day to return to his home village on his own.
After reading the diary of an elderly Jewish man who committed suicide, freelance journalist Peter Miller begins to investigate the alleged sighting of a former SS-Captain who commanded a concentration camp during World War II. Miller eventually finds himself involved with the powerful organisation of former SS members—called ODESSA—as well as with the Israeli secret service. Miller probes deeper and eventually discovers a link between the SS-Captain, ODESSA and his own family.