The story staged, then, is that of young Andreas Harmer (played by Oskar Marion), at first unemployed and then, thanks to the help of his sister, who works as a nanny at the home of councillor Othmar Valentin (Arthur von Duniecki), a police apprentice. The man soon finds himself having to deal with a couple of forgers (Attila Hörbiger and Kurt Doehn), who live in the basement of Valentin’s building and who, uneasy because of the presence of a policeman who frequently visits the house, will do anything to drive the man away, even organising the kidnapping of Valentin’s little daughter.

Approximately half a million vagabonds were roaming Austria and Germany in the late 1920s. The film addresses their social exclusion and depicts the harsh reality of living on the fringes of society.