Teacher Anne and policeman Georg are thought of as the perfect couple. However, appearances are deceptive: one of them is covered with scars and bruises. But which one is the abuser?

A quirky family lives their simple but joyful life which centers around the youngest family member, a little boy.

Ernst Stadler is a successful, award-winning chef with his own gourmet restaurant. His older brother Ludwig is also a chef, but is currently in prison. Adrian, the youngest of the three, is a nurse and gay. When their mother dies, they travel together to the funeral in Saxony-Anhalt. There they find a clue about Wickerl's biological father. They track down Ernst's father in Hungary. He had once abandoned his pregnant mother. Adrian is not a brother in the biological sense; he was adopted by his mother as a foundling. Nevertheless, they come to the conclusion: "And the three of us are still brothers."

A wealthy middle-aged man tries to seduce younger women at an oceanfront resort.

At nine, Miroslav flees the Eastern Front alone after his mother’s disappearance. In postwar Germany, the Czech boy drifts between zones, lands in reform schools and prisons, and suffers a crippling accident. Rejected by society and facing deportation, he joins Berlin’s underworld, is arrested for murder, and confronts whether society or he is to blame.

An East German machinist, disenchanted by the building of the Wall, plans to use a train to cross the border with family members and other disaffected citizens.