A young shoemaker is arrested for stealing a small amount of money, and is jailed for fifteen years. Upon his release, he wants to get a permit to get a job and start anew, but finds that without a job he can't get a permit, and without a permit he can't get a job. Ensnared in the absurd net of Prussian bureaucracy, he can't see any way out. That is, until he enters a thrift shop and spots a Prussian officer's uniform that fits him like a second skin...

An industrial plant gets into difficulties. The factory owner then decides to sell the company and makes all the employees redundant. How do the dismissed employees deal with the new situation?

Keller, a painter, while at the ballet is impressed with the beauty of Nicole and sketches her head on the body of a nude model. When it is shown, it causes embarrassment to Nicole's husband, Walter, a diplomat whose career is threatened.

Based on a play by Gerhardt Hauptmann, the film details a bittersweet May-December romance between ageing Mathias Clausen and young, beautiful Inken Peters.

Jeanine, her husband Alexis and Renato are the stars of the Varieté Royal under the name “The 3 Loopings”. A blindfolded somersault performed for the first time catapulted the three even higher in the audience’s favour. Jeanine repeatedly has problems with Renato, who has fallen in love her…

A disillusioned Wehrmacht officer named Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944.