The epic tale of a class struggle in twentieth century Italy, as seen through the eyes of two childhood friends on opposing sides.

Hans Wolgast is executed with a shot in the head in the idyllic town of Husum to Mozart's Magic Flute. His half-brother, Inspector Anton Glauberg, immediately suspects that the shadows of the family past have caught up with him because Hans was a member of the RAF. Without initially disclosing that he not only knew the dead man but was even related to him, Glauberg begins to investigate, supported by the young, attractive but inexperienced BKA officer Paula Reinhardt. The traces lead to Berlin to the scattered remnants of the RAF and its still functioning cable groups. Wolgast lived there in a shared apartment before he, like so many former terrorists, fled to the GDR in the 1980s. A former roommate of Hans Veith Seewald points out the parallel to Glauberg to a murder case from 1978.

Veterinarian Léandre Brassac lives with his wife Marie on a remote estate. One day, he decides to shelter a young woman with no bearings.

In 1942, a French prisonner of war in Germany decide to escape to France using a cow hold by a lunge as a decoy. He cross all Germany in this way.

With the help of God, the loveable safecracker Paul Wittkowski – aka “Cracker-Paulie” – manages to escape the clutches of the cops. He dresses up as a priest and ends up in a village, whose pastor is in dispute with an influential businessman. To help the pastor and a young widow, Paulie has to use his own special abilities. This work leads him back to the path of righteousness. He contacts the police and, after serving his time, starts a new life with the widow.

Betty is in jail after a failed raid on a jewelry store while her accomplice Bob escaped. But by chance she finds Bob's hiding place and towers with four other girls.

1865: Swiss captain Bluntschli fights as mercenary in the war between Bulgaria and Serbia. When his group's attacked by a few Bulgarian troopers, he learns that he's got the wrong ammunition for his cannon and has to flee. His flight leads him right into the bedroom of his enemy's fiancée.

In 1920, an unknown 24-year-old woman was fished out of Berlin's Landwehr kanal after a suicide attempt. Since she has no papers and no answers to any questions, they soon assign them to the insane asylum Dallendorf. A co-patient believes she recognizes the Czar's daughter Anastasia Romanowa - who apparently was the only one who survived the murder of the tsar's family in 1918.

A vengeful ex-con, framed and sentenced to eight years on for arson, heads to Sweden to look for the real guilty party.