1929: Marie Lehning, a farm worker from Warmsdorf on the Baltic Sea, falls in love with the fisherman's son Mingo. Both complete an apprenticeship in Lübeck. Marie wants to become a seamstress, Mingo a carpenter. After their first night of love, they swear eternal fidelity. But Marie has to return to the village, her mother is ill and her siblings are unprovided for. She starts working as a maid on a farm. Unexpectedly, she meets the young Kurt Meier from Berlin, whom she knows from before.

After his family moves from Potsdam to East Berlin, 15-year-old Klaus initially has difficulties at his new school, especially with the popular Heinz. With the help of class teacher Magnus, Klaus and Heinz settle their differences and become friends. When Magnus dies unexpectedly, his class is taken over by young Anne Morgenstern. Klaus and other classmates manage to overcome their initial dislike of the young teacher, but Heinz remains steadfast in his rejection and tries to force her replacement.

Berlin, end of the 1920s. Young factory workers Hete and Paul are expecting a child. When first Paul and then Hete become unemployed, the two look for ways to terminate the pregnancy. Hete goes to a doctor, but he refuses to give her the necessary document for the abortion. As a result, Hete and Paul want to carry out the abortion themselves, using a stolen instrument. Fearing for Hete, Paul aborts the attempt. So Hete turns to an illegal abortionist, who sends the feverish girl away with a bottle of cyanide, which is supposed to help in small doses. Hete goes to her mother, who takes care of her and also gives her the cyanide drops. But Hete exceeds the dose.

Civil engineer Berger is looking for his mother and learns that she has died and was last in a home run by the notorious construction company Huberty. When the company boss Huberty becomes the victim of an assassination attempt shortly afterwards, suspicion falls on Berger, but Huberty's death is linked to the fraudulent bankruptcy of the construction company. The boss's wife is found to be the culprit. An unpleasant surprise awaits Berger, a civil engineer from Hamburg, when he returns home after years of working in Mexico: his mother has disappeared. Her tracks are lost in a "retirement home" run by the Huberty Society. Berger suspects that his mother has been the victim of a crime. He hunts a murderer and becomes the hunted himself...

Caroline and Tobias have a lot of fantasies. But one day everything they tell suddenly become true.