Wilhelm Gröhl

Ten years old Ernst and his father Alfons are traveling to the family event on their bikes.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was the author of Werther, the romantic novel that was transformed into a play during Goethe's lifetime and which initiated the whole German romantic movement. The book's story tells of young love and suicide. In this East German film, based on a book by Thomas Mann, Lotte (Lilli Palmer) was the woman who served as the model for the heroine in the novel Werther. She comes to Goethe's hometown for a visit, and her experiences there eerily re-create episodes from the book. Goethe comes across as a pompous old bore, and his friends as pandering sycophants, in this very proper communist party-sponsored, anti-heroic movie.

When 17-year-old Angelika moves to Leipzig, she is forced to rent a room at Mrs. Häublein’s for a start, since her parents will not follow until a few months later. Fellow tenant Thomas, a philosophy student, is not at all enthused about his new, pretty housemate. Because of Angelika he has to move into a smaller room. Furthermore, he is annoyed at her many male acquaintances, without sensing that his aggression might be prompted by jealousy. When Angelika’s father comes for a visit, he asks Thomas to keep an eye on his daughter. Thomas takes this assignment very seriously and finally realizes that he has fallen in love with Angelika.

Kasper Mai, an export merchant and comrade with a “clean” record, discovers he is the prince of Hohenlohe-Liebenstein. His royal grandmother designates him as the heir to her estate. A private trip to her reveals that she does not want a NATO airbase built on her land. The GDR and his grandmother thus find a common interest, and a clever lawyer from the East works against other family members looking to settle their debts with the estate money.

The famous actor Ralf Horricht is a pain in his current director's butt while shooting a comedy about the army. So Horricht believes it a joke, when he receives an induction-order as reserve-officer... but the captain tries his best to make him realize this is no laughing matter.

Railway employee Fritz Marr is not regarded well by his superiors. It is the year 1920, and trains regularly pass the railway hub of Erfurt to the East to secretly transport weapons for the fight against the young Soviet Union. Marr knows about this and wants to mobilise other workers to stop these illegal deliveries. To muzzle him, Marr is relocated to a remote rail work construction site.

Berlin, early 1930s. Lissy, a young woman raised in a socialist working-class family, marries a clerk who promises her a better life. During the depression, however, he gets fired and can’t find a new job. Desperate for companionship and money, he falls for Nazi propaganda and joins the Storm Troopers. Lissy's brother, who for a time sympathized with the communists, now also wears the SA uniform. When he is killed by the Nazis—because of hisoppositional ideas—Lissy starts questioning things and makes a difficult and potentially dangerous decision.

This film is the first of a two-part historical and biographical portrait of the communist politician and anti-fascist Ernst Thälmann. In early November 1918, Ernst Thälmann is an unwilling soldier serving on the western front. As the revolutionary movement at home is threatened by the betrayal of the Social Democrats and fissures in the working class, Thälmann calls on his fellow soldiers to put down their weapons and unite with the workers in the communist struggle at home. Thälmann’s qualms about which side he is fighting on continue, but when the local police attempt to prevent a shipment of provisions and supplies from reaching the people in Petrograd, he intervenes and the ship is unloaded. With this moment of clarity, Thälmann continues to follow his political convictions and joins the workers at the Hamburg uprising in October 1923.