Toftlund-Holst, the tranquil place on the Baltic Sea, just before Christmas: everything could be so contemplative, but the mood in the Torkelsen house is cloudy. The lease of the restaurant "Four Mermaids" expires and the new owner Nick Winter does not want to extend it ...
1934, Hamburg. Adolf Hitler is about to visit the city. Hamburg's executioner falls ill, and is unable to deliver the sentence of four communists who are awaiting capital punishment in jail. Fearing that this would spoil Hitler's visit, SS leader Footh offers a local bankrupt butcher, Albert Teetjen, 2,000 Marks in order to carry out the verdict. The broke Teetjen agrees and follows suit. When his neighbors hear of the execution, they shun him. His wife cannot tolerate her husband's deed and puts an end to her life. Eventually, Teetjen also commits suicide.
After Chief Superintendent James Hooper was able to arrest the legendary Gentlemen mail robbery gang, he is only missing the head of the gang. But the extremely shrewd Michael Richy Richardson plays a cat-and-mouse game with the man from Scotland Yard, who has been chasing the gentleman gangster across the globe for years now. Richy changes identities like he changes suits, slipping Hooper through the net again and again. He is slowly running out of time, as his retirement is imminent. In well-deserved retirement, Hooper's final hunt begins anew, as the dogged ex-chief inspector is unwilling to let the super gangster escape.
It is about brawls, prostitution, a prison escapee, murder and manslaughter. The film wants to be documentary, the director himself appears as moderator and interviewer.
Aguirre, a Spanish father, left his family to work as a sewer worker in Germany. His son joined and he does hire. One day, the boy dies in an accident as well as German sewer worker who tries to save him. Aguirre tries to reach out to his widow and children who turn away. He understands that it is because he is a foreign worker and they reproach him as a foreigner, to be the cause of death of the German sewage worker. The universe Aguirre then collapses.