A story about a family after the Second World War. The petty bourgeois cashier Karl Weber of Berlin observes from a distance how his son Ernst participates in the building of a new socialist society. Karl does not understand Ernst's visions, instead he confides in his other son Harry. However, Harry becomes involved in illicit business and Karl quickly realizes that it would be best to join his son Ernst in the citizen-owned factory.
A wayward young woman running from her past is reunited with her sister after they became separated during the war. While she worked on the streets, the sister established a professional career as a psychologist.
As the end of the Second World War approaches and the Soviet Red Army is advancing, a group of concentration camp inmates is helped to escape by a Polish doctor. They hide in a wood where they meet other fugitives, who have been there for months, constantly in fear of being discovered. Out of fear of the German army patrols, they do not dare to leave the forest, even as the food supplies run low.
The film centres around the young woman Erika, desperately seeking for love and escape from the depression of the times, drifting, and in the end becoming involved with a circle of rich people who sell goods for sexual favours.
