The impoverished and homeless orphan girl Anna Barbara sets out in search of the mysterious golden thaler. The rag collector Hans Geiz offers her the promise of it if she toils in his underground kingdom for three years.

1831. A village schoolteacher Matthias Spitzbart dreams of the ideal school and writes a textbook on the perfect educational institution. When he becomes principal of a grammar school by chance, he puts his ideas into practice. His almost missionary-like zeal blossoms in wondrous ways, but his family idyll is deceptive. Entangled in his activities, Spitzbart fails to see his wife's affair with pro-rector Mehlmann, daughter Friederike flirts with the trainee teacher, and son Michael's misdeeds are enough to make a mockery of his efforts at exemplary behavior. Teachers, parents and the mayor are of the opinion that he has upset everything that worked before: he is dismissed...

Tom, a 17-year-old window design apprentice, dreams about true love. One day, a new girl from East Berlin moves to town. Tom has a crush on her and will do anything to impress her. When he finds out that she plans to become an actress, he even discovers the aspiration to perform himself. For a while, Tom is on cloud 9.

The Oppen family has lived in Berlin, Griesener Straße, for generations. The first names of the family members are also repeated, so the grandson Jan has the same first name as his grandfather. The Oppens' husbands have maintained a tradition up to now: they were or are all carpenters. But the latter does not yet fall on fertile ground with 16-year-old Jan, whose passion is the moped, his "machine". Of course, he is a newcomer among the motorcycle fans around the black Jonny, but he loves to be in their company to experience adventures, and of course he wants to be able to "keep up" with them. Jan has already developed a strategy for how he can do this.