Dr. Robert Hart visits his friend Ursula von Hohenau in Saxony in July 1914. There he hears about the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia. He immediately returns to his home town where, just before mobilisation, he meets the Polish count Bransky and his daughter Jadwiga, the French Vicomte Latour and the Russian counsellor of embassy count Bronislaw Krascinsky. Bronislaw is madly in love with Jadwiga and jealous of Dr. Hart. After the outbreak of the war Dr. Hart works close to the Polish frontlines. Bronislaw leads the Russian troops in this area. When Bronislaw is wounded during a battle with the Germans Dr. Hart finds him and takes care of his wounds.

When a travelling troupe threatens to unleash a saucy Berlin revue on the provincial town of Emilsburg, the local Morality Society, a band of sanctimonious middle-aged men, stages a protest. Meanwhile, the reigning monarch is concerned that his son and heir is not living his life to the full. Ninon d’Hauteville, a showgirl and the revue’s star attraction, takes a job as piano teacher to the young prince after her engagement at the local theatre was brought to a premature end, a result of the Morality Society’s interference. It doesn’t take long for those hypocrites to get wind of this. While on the outside they appear to be concerned with running the immoral woman out of their town, behind closed doors they rank among the new piano teacher’s most ardent pupils. However, Ninon, out to right the wrong done against her, secretly keeps a “diary” of their visits, recording each encounter on film with a hidden camera.

Two French spies, Baron d’Aubigny and Clemence de Montignon, blackmail German engineer Günther Ellinghaus with his gambling debts into handing over his construction plans for the new Ikarus engine. He flees to New York and works as a waiter. When World War I breaks, he signs on as a fireman on a Dutch ship and returns to Europe. He becomes a fighter pilot in Germany and faces the former spies as his enemies. After an emergency landing he is taken into their headquarters. He escapes an attempted murder and fights his enemies in an air battle. Both of them survive and after the war Ellinghaus offers them his hand in reconciliation.

France in the first half of the 17th century, at the time of the Duke and all-powerful Cardinal Richelieu. The courtesan Marion Delorme falls in love with the nobleman Didier de Lassigny, although she is still with another nobleman at the time, the Marquis de Saverny. Marion then leaves the Marquis. This leads to a duel between the two aristocratic gentlemen, although duels were strictly forbidden in these circles by Richelieu. When this becomes known, Didier is put in chains and sentenced to death. Marion sacrifices herself for the sake of her new love, but the sacrifice is in vain. Didier, who refused to flee, is finally beheaded by order of the "red executioner" Richelieu.