Weeks after the victory in Vietnam, first pictures of a new humanity are captured: old and sick people preparing for their future, children on their way to school.

Mozglyakov, a young noble playboy, brings great "luck" to the small town of Mordassov: he brings them a prince in the flesh whom he has picked up in the snow. His commentary on this "high-born": the prince is actually just an artificial figure, with horsehair, a glass eye and chalky legs as well as a spring system as a locomotor system. He and other male inhabitants of the small town had no idea that such a fossil would set the local ladies into a fierce battle for prestige, power and money.

The democratic Munich journalist and editor-in-chief of the "Südkurier" newspaper, Alexander Steinhorst, has reached the pinnacle of social reputation and private wealth. He can rent a theater for his son and women are at his feet. He then takes the liberty of publishing a newspaper with revelations about the dubious sources of the CSU election fund. CSU lawyer Dr. Fabricius sets a photographer on Steinhorst's private life to bring him down. He is charged with "fornication with addicts", but is acquitted due to a lack of evidence. Steinhorst, however, is ruined socially. Friends and colleagues turn their backs on him out of fear for their own careers and his assets are confiscated. Steinhorst commits suicide.

After a breakdown, Rita returns to her childhood village in 1961. As she recovers, she remembers the past two years: her love for the chemist Manfred, ten years her senior; how his enthusiasm about his new chemical process turned to bitter disappointment in the face of official rejection; how he escaped to West Berlin a few weeks before the Wall was built and hoped that she would follow him …

1982: East German actor Erwin Gregorek travels to Hamburg to shoot screen tests for a film about the sinking of the ocean-liner Cap Arcona in 1945 - a catastrophe he himself survived as a concentration camp prisoner.