This feature film describes the labor dispute of a piecework crew in a large German industrial company and its workforce against the background of the "September strikes" in Germany.
In a fictitious European city known as Padukgrad, where a government arises following the rise of a philosophy known as "Ekwilism", which discourages the idea of anyone being different from anyone else, and promotes the state as the prominent good in society.
The young women who board a liner in the port of Genoa have no idea that they are being watched, nor what actually awaits them. Harald, who had recruited them for the trip with false promises, watches unnoticed, but cannot enjoy his success, because there are many people interested in the lucrative business with the girls, who are to be forced into prostitution. After two gangsters shoot the shady Lemaire, who had previously blackmailed Harald, he can return unmolested to Berlin to his compagnon Rolf, but the competition remains on his heels and threatens to disrupt the business.
March, 1945: The insecure and hesitant reserve lieutenant Felix Bleck receives orders to lead a transport of 40 prisoners to the Western Front, where the men are to be burned up in a punishment battalion. On the way there, Bleck realizes the inhuman futility of his assignment and makes a fateful decision.
The jealous star conductor Montemayor knows that his beautiful younger wife, Winifred, is cheating on him with an American named Jack Mortimer. After the concert rehearsal, he takes a taxi to the train station, sees Mortimer and shoots him at an intersection from the backseat of his taxi. The shot is not heard during the traffic noise. The taxi driver, Sponer, sitting in his car with the now-dead Mortimer, goes into a panic.
