In a desperate bid to regain his fortune, the impoverished Elector of the Palatinate does everything in his power to arrange a marriage between his eldest daughter, Liselotte, and a wealthy nobleman—but to no avail, for with her tomboyish manner, the young woman sends all her suitors running for the hills.

Following the suicide of an elderly Jewish man, investigative journalist Peter Miller sets out to hunt down an SS Captain and former concentration camp commander. In doing so he discovers that, despite allegations of war crimes, the former commander has become a man of importance in industry in post-war Germany, protected from prosecution by a powerful organisation of former SS members called Odessa.

Richard Mertens, a successful magazine editor with a cold, empty marriage to Lucy, seeks excitement through an affair with younger colleague Eva. Yet his need for status traps him in superficiality, undermining genuine connection. A legal battle with old friend Ferrow, won through perjury, reveals Mertens’s moral emptiness, shattering his relationship with Eva. Alone, he finds solace only in listening to bartender Brigitte.

Swedish military attaché Stig Wennerström comes into contact with the US secret service at a party. After a trip to Moscow, he provides the Americans with valuable information about Soviet jets. But Wennerström is playing a double game. Lieutenant General Aratov, a Russian officer, approaches him and becomes his partner in shady dealings. For three years, the double agent game works. But then the Soviet secret service discovers that Colonel Wennerström is also working for the class enemy. The Swede is forced to spy exclusively for the Soviets from then on and goes to the American capital...

When a squatted house in Hamburg is evicted, Else, a well-known vagrant, also has to look for a new place to live. Having separated from her family at a very early age and bequeathed part of her fortune to poor orphans in India, she makes her way to her sister, the owner of the house, and is forced to watch a failed bank robbery. The two gangsters, who fear Else's testimony and therefore take her into their power, devise a plan to accompany her and get their hands on her sister's fortune.

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, returns home to find his father murdered and his mother remarrying the murderer, his uncle.

When the Duke of Vienna takes a mysterious leave of absence and leaves the strict Angelo in charge, things couldn't be worse for Claudio, who is sentenced to death for premarital sex. His nun-in-training sister Isabella is very persuasive at pleader, but when she goes to Angelo, instead of freeing her brother, he offers to save his life if she sleeps with him. Isabella's only sympathetic friend is a priest who is actually the Duke in disguise, and he has a plan.