Based on the bestselling biography: Entertainer Horst Lichter has barely had time to relax on his holiday when his mother calls him. In her own dry way, she tells him that she has been diagnosed with cancer and that things are not going well for her. Immediately Horst returns to his hometown with his wife Nada. Returning home brings back childhood memories - of a loving father and a mother who held the reins firmly in difficult situations. Horst tries his best to support his mother Margret - he organises doctor's appointments and tries to provide a little variety into her daily life, even though the relationship between mother and son has been strained for a long time: he counters his mother's edgy, frosty manner as he had learned to do when he was young. He emphasises the positive side of any situation and is always ready to respond with a snappy retort. When Margret learns how serious her illness really is, Horst begins to rethink his own life as well.

It is the late 1950s. Flourishing under the economic miracle, Germany grows increasingly apathetic about confronting the horrors of its recent past. Nevertheless, Fritz Bauer doggedly devotes his energies to bringing the Third Reich to justice. One day Bauer receives a letter from Argentina, written by a man who is certain that his daughter is dating the son of Adolph Eichmann. Excited by the promising lead, and mistrustful of a corrupt judiciary system where Nazis still lurk, Bauer journeys to Jerusalem to seek alliance with Mossad, the Israeli secret service. To do so is treason — yet committing treason is the only way Bauer can serve his country.