Hilla grows up in the 60s, her father is a worker and her mother a charwoman. But she wants a different future for herself, wants to study. After a violent incident she needs a strong shoulder. Who of her life will do?
In 1938 Hans Zeisig, an apolitical comedian, impersonator and cabaret actor, flees with a Russian passport (instead of American, which he would have preferred) from Nazi-Berlin, and finds himself in the legendary Hotel Lux, the 'lost paradise' of the Comintern, in Moscow. Everyone believes that Zeisig is a man named Hansen, Hitler's personal astrologer. But Zeisig quickly realizes that he's gone from the frying pan into the fire. In the Hotel Lux he meets his friends Frida and later Meyer again, still passionate communists. For the three idealists an adventure between love and death begins to run his course.
Following her parents' wishes, spirited seventeen-year-old Effi Briest marries Baron von Innstetten – a former admirer of her mother – who is twenty years Effi's senior. This marriage of prudence heralds the beginning of a humdrum life, far from home, for Effi. Innstetten devotes himself entirely to his political career, and the sleepy small town of Kessin has very little to offer in terms of variety. But then, one day, Innstetten's old regimental comrade, Major Crampas – a charming womanizer – arrives on the scene.
