A teenager is found murdered, and the examining doctor recognizes her son's knife. The film works its way back to reveal how this situation came about; a rare treatment of the taboo subject of youth criminality in Socialist society.

Time of darkness. Time of fire kindled against cold and fear. During the Holy Night, the seven year old Micha has to escape with his young mother Marianne from the violence of his drunken father... During their one week odyssey through frozen Germany, mother and son meet people to offer them shelter... Crushed by their own poverty, or dominated by their feelings of being lost, these people just hurt them deeper and they can be nothing other than stations of their continuous escape

The story of a Leipzig family from 1987 to the Monday demonstrations in 1989. After the death of her father, a high-ranking officer in the People's Police, the daughter joins the resistance movement around St. Nicholas Church. Phenomena such as obedience, followership, spying and resistance are illustrated in this haunting film based on individual people. A film that provides food for thought for the discussion about the fall of the Berlin Wall and recapitulates contemporary history.

Even the military academy can't stop kind-hearted officer Gottfried Engelhardt from seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. Everything in the young GDR is blooming: Engelhardt's career, the socialist state, the black market, and maybe even a chance at love.