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.
During the final days of the Second World War, British intelligence sends an agent to Berlin to try to discover the secrets of Nazi Germany's nuclear weapons program.
Kurt Hoffmann′s satire concerning Germany′s development during the first half of the 20th century tells the story of two schoolmates - Hans and Bruno. They could not be more different. While Hans is ambitious and must always work hard for his career, it seems that the happy go lucky Bruno is carefree.
Andreas, a young German student comes to Hungary on an exchange programme. In the Hungarian village he falls in love with the stationmaster's daughter Piroschka and spends much of his time with her. They have an enchanting summer until Andreas gets an invitation to join another young woman at a nearby resort. Piroschka is jealous and follows him there, causing trouble. It takes a long time for Andreas and Piroschka to even talk to each other again. When Andreas has to leave Hungary at the end of his holiday, he is determined to return some day.
It is a love story between a prostitute and an artist. It was one of the first German films to break several taboos: nudity, suicide and euthanasia. In the Germany of the '50s, this caused a lot of negative reactions by the politicians and the Roman Catholic Church. The opposition reached the degree of banning the film and scandalizing it which paradoxically made it one of the landmarks in the history of film.
