Based on the real life events of the 1927 Steglitzer Schülertragödie, in which several high school students planned murder-suicides.

Else Riedel (Lissy Arna), locked out by her authoritarian father, seeks refuge with her boyfriend Hans. Complications threaten when Hans's roommate Max falls in love with her, but the situation is resolved: the three remain friends, and decide to form a music hall act. They want to ascend, but how? A way out beckons when a theatrical agent named Nevin enters Else’s life. He is played by Hubert von Meyerinck as a slick and oily villain, who oozes refinement; his experience behind bars is waved away with a silk scarf. He is cunning to the point of perfidiousness, but is not completely unsympathetic. He also embodies a new type - the scrounger.

An unknown guest checks into an obscure hotel. He is a burly but well-dressed gentleman carrying an umbrella and a tree frog in a glass. This man spends most of his time wandering the hallways and staircases of the inn, ostensibly to hunt for flies to feed his pet. But quite obviously, there is more to it than that: the man also listens at doors and peeks through their keyholes.

Gerhard Lamprecht sketches a cross-section of Germany's new post-war society, with its winners, social climbers, and losers, represented by the social microcosm of an apartment building. The gossip-mad Frau Mierig from the rear building gives the newly-arrived Frau Kaminski, the janitor's wife, a lively initiation into the tenants and their peculiarities.