A young officer suffers under his ambitious wife, who is determined to make a captain out of him. Meanwhile, ship's cook Andresen becomes a father and, for the sake of his wife, becomes an innkeeper ashore, but he is still driven by wanderlust.

East Berlin, shortly after the construction of the Berlin Wall. Kurt Schröder and his family dig a tunnel to escape to West Berlin as they struggle to overcome the obstacles blocking their underground path to freedom.