Erik, recently retired, is looking forward to some post-work adventure and to enjoy his family. These plans are thrown into doubt as the harsh reality of his wife Juditha’s accelerating illness causes his own health to deteriorate. Juditha refuses to accept any outside help as Erik buckles under the pressure.
Rainer toils by the sweat of his brow on a building site. His first job as site manager is his much-needed big break. Rising rents in the city have already forced him, his pregnant wife and 13-year-old daughter Doreen to move into a little house in the outskirts which needs renovating. At first, Doreen is not thrilled about her new life but then she meets her neighbour Mara, a girl whose parents are as rich as they are narrow-minded. Before long the new friends are playing with fire. Mara incites Doreen to play some nasty tricks and also entangles her in a theft.
Lawyer Dominique Kuster can feel a professional success for herself when her underage client Stefan, the oldest of three foster children, receives mitigating circumstances. After the court hearing, however, she found out that the foster father Christian Hunziker had a fatal accident in a car. An autopsy reveals that it was murder. Someone has swapped the dead man's insulin for ineffective water. Christian's wife Martina comes under suspicion.
In the late 70s, young Petra Grust begins teaching at the progressive Odenwald School. She is flattered by the trust placed in her by its widely respected headmaster Simon Pistorius. But gradually certain incidents at the boarding school begin to unsettle her. Petra then realizes that Pistorius is abusing Frank, a 13-year-old. When Frank is told that he has to spend school holidays with Pistorius, he tries to commit suicide. Petra tells Frank's father (the chairman of the school's governing body) but he believes Pistorius instead of his own son. Petra fails to convince people of the man's true nature. 30 years later, Frank goes to Petra, who has long since left the school and has stopped teaching altogether. He has never been able to speak about what happened but now, after the suicide of another pupil, he is no longer willing to remain silent. He wants Petra to bear witness at the school's forthcoming anniversary celebrations.
The happening of a ceremonial robing of the youngest daughter as a novice in a Swabian convent screws up the values of a modern family. As if life wasn't complicated enough anyway. And how are you supposed to be happy without new clothes?
After aspiring poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe fails his law exams, he's sent to a sleepy provincial court to reform. Instead, he falls for Lotte, a young woman who is promised to another man.
Michaela, an epileptic, enrolls in college to study education. She goes off her medication and soon begins hearing voices and seeing apparitions that tell her to avoid religious objects, although she is devoutly Roman Catholic. One priest scoffs at the idea that Michaela could be possessed by demons, but a younger pastor arranges an exorcism for the young woman.
