Western intelligence agents try, by all means necessary, to prevent a Communist-bloc defector from leaving the West in his bid to return home to lead an uprising.

Fanny Hobichler, a young promising actress, moves to Vienna in the 1920s in order to pursue her big break. She draws inspiration and seeks help from the popular stage actor Albert Kortz who once started out from the same provincial town as she did and was a close friend of her late father. Kortz, however, dreams of retiring as he is tired of his fame and having to deal with the short-tempered theatre director Jason. Together, they try to outwit Jason.

Monique, a young woman who gave up her medicine studies, falls in love with a photographer and then turns away from him because of his unsteadiness and marries an erotic film maker. But the wedding does not last and she returns to the protographer.

A man sentenced to death escapes from a military prison and finds shelter with a resistance group that is set to liberate the country. The repressive enemy never sleeps. The escaping condemned man is also no longer the old warrior he once was: he is broken - wonders whether the resistance can put him back together.