Robert, who ran away from home as a boy, returns to reveal he's become a master thief. His parents want to send him away again, afraid he'll wind up on the gallows.
Die Literaturagentin Lara Brunn fährt nach längerer Zeit wieder in ihren Heimatort in den Bayerischen Alpen. Anlass ist der Geburtstag ihrer Mutter. Lara wartet gemeinsam mit ihrer Schwester Sylvia im Elternhaus, doch die Mutter taucht nicht auf. Am nächsten Tag findet ein Suchtrupp in den Bergen eine männliche Leiche, die schon seit mehreren Jahren dort liegt. Kurz darauf wird in der Nähe auch die Mutter tot aufgefunden. Während Sylvia an einen Unfalltod glaubt, vermutet Lara einen Mord. Sie stößt auf einige Ungereimtheiten und muss schnell feststellen, dass sie nur sehr wenig über das Leben ihrer Mutter weiß. Auch die eigene Vergangenheit wird immer ungewisser.
An American historian (Mr Webster) comes to Berlin to visit an old man who claims to be the real Adolf Hitler and to be 103 years old. The Hitler who died in 1945, the old man says, was just one of his six doubles - one for each weekday - while Hitler himself retired into a bunker below the S-Bahn tracks and married a second time.
A “film-noir” on double identity and role reversal. A man is looking for a woman to love. He finds her in a seedy bar and persuades her to marry him. The day she decides to flee… he kills her. To ward off suspicion, he moves in with the sister of the deceased.
1934, Hamburg. Adolf Hitler is about to visit the city. Hamburg's executioner falls ill, and is unable to deliver the sentence of four communists who are awaiting capital punishment in jail. Fearing that this would spoil Hitler's visit, SS leader Footh offers a local bankrupt butcher, Albert Teetjen, 2,000 Marks in order to carry out the verdict. The broke Teetjen agrees and follows suit. When his neighbors hear of the execution, they shun him. His wife cannot tolerate her husband's deed and puts an end to her life. Eventually, Teetjen also commits suicide.
In the 26th century the inhabitants of Utopia have so lost their individuality, which varies in number. They live in glass houses (this was written before the invention of television), which allows the political police, called “Keepers” can easily supervise them. They all wear the same uniform and usually turn to each other or as a ”cipher-so” or "UNIFEM" (uniform). They feed on artificial food and rest hour marching in fours in a row the anthem of the One State, pouring out of the loudspeakers. As they are allowed to put a break on the hour (known as the ”sexy time“), draw the curtains of their glass houses. At the head of the One State is one called The Benefactor, which are replaced every year the whole population, usually unanimously. The guiding principle of the State is that happiness and freedom are incompatible.
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.
