Once upon a time there was a Greek king, Kratos, who was very strict and kind-hearted. His gentle wife Arete, however, was loved by all the people. One day, the king was persuaded by his devious advisor to re-enact an ancient law, according to which the first child of the royal couple had to be a boy. When Arete gave birth to a girl, she was in great need. In order to present the king with an heir to the throne, she agreed to swap her daughter with the gardener's son...

The double suicide of Heinrich von Kleist and his companion Henriette Vogel on November 21, 1811 at the Kleiner Wannsee in Berlin is the focus of this film. Based on testimonies from the preparation days and the day of the suicide, as well as the statements of the Wannsee innkeepers taken from the police records, the suicides are reconstructed - from the planning to the execution.

Director Wolfgang Staudte who left East Germany in 1953 to make movies in West Germany, takes a few swipes at the West German judicial system in this fairly effective courtroom drama about the murder of a four-month-old baby. Police almost immediately arrest the mother Ingrid who is the mistress of the father, a rich business VIP married to another woman. His position and wealth keep him insulated from suspicion. A hot-shot lawyer has to overcome the unaccountably biased perceptions of the police, the judge, the prosecutor and almost everyone else in the judicial system. The defence lawyer, driven to an extreme, knows he has to find the real killer or his client will be convicted.

The new-rich mother of a film child who became famous overnight is trying to bring her little son together with the twelve-year-old king of a Balkan country, who is currently in Brussels, for validity and advertising reasons. The children actually get to know each other and run away with an 'Liftboy' to Antwerp for adventure.

During the Thirty Years' War, Christine, an orphan, falls in love with the colonel Count Merian. In order to always be with him, she puts on men's clothes, becomes a troop boy and later even a cornet - only the sutler knows her secret. Little by little, Christine realizes that the man she loves has been brutalized by the war and is no longer capable of true feelings. When she gives herself to him instead of a peasant maid, she is horrified by his brutality. She shoots him in a duel. She is sentenced to death as a cornet, but acquitted as a woman.

A chemist and his assistant make a groundbreaking discovery. They manage to make butter directly from pasture grass without having to deal with either the cow or the use of dairy products. An industrialist attempts to seize the invention.