After a fierce argument Steffi Zinn′s husband leaves the joint flat and stays away from home over night. The next morning, his wife Steffi has disappeared and is reported as a missing person. Captain Lohm takes over the case and at first looks for signs of a murder, but to no avail. Then, Steffi′s body is found in a lake. After her funeral, a stranger who had attended Steffi′s funeral for a short time is also found dead in a lake, and the connection between the two cases becomes apparent.
The Germanic pagan deity, The Rainmaker, has fallen asleep, causing widespread drought and poverty. A young couple, Andreas and Maren must trick an old goblin into leading them to the magic garden of The Rainmaker and wake her up.
A train travels through the vastness of Russia, a train with German prisoners of war returning home, and Viktor Kleist, a young German communist from an intellectual home in Munich, travels back home with them. During the journey, the stations on his way to Lenin wake up again.
Two 17-year-olds, Werner Holt and Gilbert Wolzow, are pulled out of school and into Hitler's army. Gilbert becomes a fanatical soldier; but at the front, Werner begins to understand the senselessness of war.
After a breakdown, Rita returns to her childhood village in 1961. As she recovers, she remembers the past two years: her love for the chemist Manfred, ten years her senior; how his enthusiasm about his new chemical process turned to bitter disappointment in the face of official rejection; how he escaped to West Berlin a few weeks before the Wall was built and hoped that she would follow him …
Lavish adaptation of Wilhelm Hauff′s fairy tale: Young charburner Peter Munk dreams of joining the upper class. He makes a deal with the sinister Holländer-Michel, who offers to trade Peter′s human heart for one made of stone. Once he has the "cold heart" in his body, Peter eventually strikes a fortune and enjoys great wealth, but at the same time, he becomes a bitter and emotionless man – and, having lost all traces of humanity, even murders his wife Lisbeth. Only then does Peter Munk finally realize what has become of him, and he decides to regain his real heart from Holländer-Michel.
