Follows the life of several different people in 1960s in Germany for a few days. The story begins, when a juvenile criminal steals an old woman's handbag in a post office and throws it into a parking car, when he feels observed. But there was a lot of money in that bag, and thereby a dozen fortunes become entwined.
A German soldier on leave in Berlin goes looking for his pen pal who he has never met called Gisela. He meets instead a woman with the same name and falls in love with her.
A biographical film of Otto von Bismarck, the Prime Minister of Prussia, and how he and his policies - including aggressive war - helped to unite Germany.
