Basada en la novela sobre Jacob Fabian, un publicista liberal de Berlin que fue testigo del desmoronamiento de la sociedad alemana durante los años 30.
En la Rusia de finales del siglo XIX, el príncipe Nekhlioudov es nombrado jurado en un juicio a una muchacha que sedujo y dejó embarazada, y que luego se lanzó a una vida de desenfrenos. Consigue que le sustituyan, pero su sentimiento de culpabilidad no para de aumentar cuando la condenan a trabajos forzados en Siberia. Le pide que se case con él, pero la joven se niega y muere sin perdonarle. El príncipe confía su alma a Dios.
Rosalie is young and pretty maid on the farm of the winemaker Jacob. She becomes pregnant with the servant Marko, who disappears with a gypsy singer, leaving Rosalie alone in her awkward situation.
In a small German village in the middle of large moors, there is an old legend of a young woman having sunk in the wetland after being raped by a Swedish intruder of the Thirty Years' war. Now young Dorothee, falling in love with the architect Ludwig, is harassed by an obnoxious, rich farmer Eschmann. The brutal man is ready to do anything to get the maiden. The history is repeating itself, as Eschmann follows Dorothee to the moors after his crime.
Observing staunch moral attitudes, professor Traugott Nägler, his wife Marianne, and their swarm of children life a happy and idyllic life in a small town. But when their oldest daughter Atlanta inherits a house in Montevideo that belonged to the deceased sister of the professor, the family′s life is about to change dramatically.
