Klaus Ebeling

Sabine Wulff is almost 18 when she is released from the juvenile detention center. She doesn't want to return to her unsupportive parents or to her former boyfriend Jimmy, who got her into trouble by persuading her to steal cigarettes. She instead chooses to begin an honest life by getting a job and renting her own room.

Bruno Kappel is an established attorney in Hamburg who, in earlier times, belonged to an anarchistic student circle. His former girlfriend Karin Kunze is still a member of this scene. Bruno, who still has left-wing beliefs, becomes her attorney. But when Karin gets into a shootout with the police, she has to go into hiding. The prosecuting attorney Baller has also been a former member of the anarchistic scene. He does not want his past to be revealed by Karin′s apprehension and prosecution. Thus, he asks Kappel to find Karin and sneak her out to a foreign country.

Berlin at the end of the 1940s. Anneliese Weyher is working as a switchboard operator. She is living with her aunt after losing her parents in the war – a stroke of fate that has thrown the young woman off course emotionally. Indifferently, she is doing her work; her private life consists of an affair with a black-marketeer. Even when Anneliese witnesses an armed robbery, committed by infamous Wollnick and his gang, she stays lethargic and apathetic – she keeps silent instead of helping the inspector who is a friend of her aunt. It is not until Anneliese by coincidence meets her former lover, the watchmaker Kurt, that her life seems to take a positive turn.

The late summer of 1918. Paul, Willi and Heinrich from an age-old German town are good friends, although there is a great deal that divides them. Heinrich comes from an officer's family with an army tradition and is preparing to enter cadet college. Paul's father and grandfather are workers, and Willi, left to depend on himself, works as a hotel messenger. The last year of the war is hard for everyone, but while Paul and Willi know their own minds and do not hesitate to help the war fugitives Tony and Sepp, for Heinrich everything is more complicated.

Hans the farmer is drawn into war as a soldier. Returning from the front, having been defrauded of his pay by his own king, he makes his way home. On his trip, he encounters a witch who asks him to fetch the light from a spring. He keeps it when the witch tries to deceive him and he discovers her foul magic. When the light is ignited, a little man appears who must serve the owner of the light, but it only has power if the owner has faith in himself. His courage bolstered, Hans goes to the king once more to demand his wages be paid.

Josef Neumann has always been an outsider to society, and at the age of 30, he has already lived an adventurous life when he comes to the GDR. He was raised as a foundling by nuns, made an apprenticeship as a construction worker, went to the Foreign Legion, and was a seaman and a tramp. Now, he is working at the Warnow shipyard. Brigadier Bruno has a lot of sympathy and patience with the unconventional Josef, but Josef cannot fall in line with strict orders and again and again acts against the rules.

Hans Röckle is a puppeteer, inventor, blacksmith and more. He is challenged by the Devil (in almost a dozen fancy costumes) who offers him even more inventiveness, against his soul should he ever make money with an invention, build something twice, or cease inventing for 7*7 hours.

Hoffi is starting fresh after his release from prison. He travels with his brother to different construction sites in search of Urban, an acquaintance and role model he met during a brief hospital stay. Along the way, Hoffi meets Gila, who sees beyond his past in prison. Despite disapproval from her family, Gila decides to build a relationship and future with Hoffi, but Hoffi initially hesitates at this responsibility. It takes the encouragement of his workers’ brigade for Hoffi to realize his mistake and give his relationship with Gila a chance.

A Saxon village in 1792: While the Prussians go against France, the haymaking takes place in the village and the resolute Marthe catches her daughter Ev with the village blacksmith Ruprecht in the hay.

Berlin in the 1960s. Olaf and Horst are two young metalworkers, who provoke their older colleagues with critiques of the antiquated equipment and lack of materials... not to mention their love of leather jackets and motorbikes. Olaf and Horst begin to be targeted in the house newsletter, and the generational conflict escalates.

Leading chemist Hans Schramm is betrothed to Hanna, but falls in love with her younger sister Franka. The two attempt to repress their feelings, but eventually begin an affair. When Hans is extorted by a group of West German agents, who demand to know about his secret work, he is gripped by panic and decides the only way out is to flee to the West …