Using the example of three generations of a Hamburg working class family, the rise of the working class from the founding of the Wilhelmin Empire to the First World War, over the time of the Weimar Republic and National Socialism to the destruction of the Third Reich.

They are just 17 years old when Gaby and Eva receive the offer to play in a feature film that ambitious Hamburg filmmakers want to make. Despite their youth, the girls are suspicious because they have already experienced a lot. On the other hand, that would be the opportunity to escape the difficulties they have been in for a long time. The filmmakers persuade them to cross the border illegally. The girls do not suspect that they should be used by the Springer company to provoke a scandal. But the Ministry of State Security has the action already in sight.

USA 1964: Three young men are arrested on suspicion of speeding. As it turns out, they are employees of a civil rights center in Mississippi who are fighting against the racist Ku Klux Klan. The disappearance of the activists leads to a political scandal in the USA. There are riots and demonstrations against the president's civil rights policy. Despite smear campaigns in the south of the USA, a trial is held in which the background is to be clarified. But the real perpetrators have their own laws...

This elaborate two-part television film features a section from the life of communist worker leader Ernst Thälmann. It begins with the bloody riots on May 1, 1929 in Berlin, in which police officers shot at demonstrating workers, and ends with February 7, 1933, when Thälmann appeared as a speaker at the illegal meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Germany in goat neck. This period was marked by the struggle of the Communists against the ever stronger National Socialists and the rise of Adolf Hitler.

In 1923, Judge Böhnsdorf and Inspector Dumke convict 22-year-old Fritz Bondersen of treason, accused of selling military secrets on the testimony of General Director Gotthardt, and sentence him to 15 years in a Zuchthaus. Despite his protestations of innocence, Bondersen can’t produce proof. Two years later, his fiancée Edith Volkmann, aided by journalist Günther Borchert, tracks down a French officer whose eyewitness account could discredit Gotthardt’s statement. Their quest to expose a massive fraud offers Bondersen a final hope for justice.

Major Bert Harkus takes over the artillery regiment in Jesnack after graduating from the military academy. The troop proudly presents itself during an exercise. But apart from some good results in shooting, Harkus soon realizes that there are a few problems. As he does not believe that constant combat readiness is guaranteed, he orders far-reaching changes and does not only make friends. Only gradually do the troops pull themselves together.

In an act of friendship and solidarity between two mining towns in 1929, the locals of Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, give their flag as a gift to the locals of Bergstedt, Germany in this GDR propaganda film. This quickly takes on a symbolic meaning for the miners in Bergstedt as the Nazi party demands that this Soviet gesture be erased and the flag be replaced with their own. The miner and communist party functionary Otto Brosowski publicly declares it his duty to defend this flag against every danger, and he keeps his promise despite his family being threatened by torment and torture.

Maria, a young student sees her brother Dieter going to prison for sedition against the state. She starts an affair with Paul, a judge who turns out to be the one who sentenced her brother, which eventually leads to a confrontation.

Her brothers and fiancé are at war. In 1944, Marta struggles alone with her gardening business. One day, a deserter turns up at her house. What to do? Marta decides to keep Steiner with her. A life-threatening decision: military police scour the village...