Wolfgang Condrus

Edith runs a left-wing journal and when her marriage starts to fall apart (her husband is unfaithful), she can find no solace in her son who is more of a problem than an asset. On top of heading toward a divorce and being unable to handle her son's asocial tendencies, her neurotic uncle moves in, demanding personalized care. Just to keep her sanity intact, Edith starts writing in her diary to vent her own feelings and ambitions. As her son goes from bad to worse over a five-year period, it turns out that Edith's diary may be of more benefit than she could have ever imagined. In this adaptation of Edith's Diary by Patricia Highsmith, director and writer Hans W. Geissendoerfer has maintained Highsmith's psychologically tormented characters while changing the location and time of her story from the U.S. of the 1960s to Germany in the early 1980s.

The story follows the life of a regular German women Leni Gruyten during the 1930s and 1940s. Through her interactions with friends, family and other people she knows, the regular folks' perception of the Nazi era is shown.

The title refers to the Feuerzangenbowle punch consumed by a group of gentlemen in the opening scene. While they exchange nostalgic stories about their schooldays, the successful young writer Dr. Johannes Pfeiffer realizes he missed out on something because he was taught at home and never attended school. He decides to make up for it by masquerading as a student at a small-town high school. At the school, he quickly gains a reputation as a prankster. Together with his classmates, he torments his professors Crey, Bömmel, and Headmaster Knauer with adolescent mischief. His girlfriend Marion unsuccessfully tries to persuade him to give up his foolish charade. Eventually, he falls in love with the headmaster's daughter and discloses his identity after provoking the teachers into expelling him from school.

In Liverpool there's a gang war between the Mods (who dress in the latest fashions and styles) and the Rockers (who are more into the '50s "greaser" look). Ricky, the son of a wealthy businessman, is a Mod guitar player, and in a gang fight with some Rockers, his girlfriend is killed. He leaves Liverpool for the continent and winds up in Rome, where he becomes involved with his father's mistress.

London, in 1730. Charly, Jim and Ben work hard, with the brave Maud, in a cotton mill to earn a few shillings. They all dream of the wonderful island told by Daniel Defoe. The latter lives in a miserable room. He is disgraced and rejected by his son Tom, a scoundrel who blames his father for losing his position at the Court ...

Otto Dernburg is forced by circumstances to dress up as a middle-aged woman.

After Clown Teddy lost his son, he lost his gift for laughter. He opened a joke shop and lives above the shop. His landlady has had a foster son since birth, and Teddy decides to raise the child, who always believed that Teddy was his father. When the mother suddenly appears five years later and wants her son, Teddy decides to run away with the child and goes back onstage with his son. Will the family catch up with them, or will the mother never get her son back?

Emil goes to Berlin to see his grandmother with a large amount of money and is offered sweets by a strange man that make him sleep. He wakes up at his stop with no money. It is up to him and a group of children to save the day.

Postman Titus Müller returns from his daily rounds with a letter that will change the course of his modest provincial existence.

On a mountain lake, in the picturesque Alps in the Salzburg region, the old, rich grumble has retired to his country house and actually only wants to live in peace and seclusion. Soon the longed-for peace will be over, because in the immediate vicinity a home for little-wealthy holiday children will be opened in an empty house, which will be headed by the cheerful and optimistic teacher Miss Helm.

Refugees from East Germany try to make a living in the west.