Gerhard Lamprecht sketches a cross-section of Germany's new post-war society, with its winners, social climbers, and losers, represented by the social microcosm of an apartment building. The gossip-mad Frau Mierig from the rear building gives the newly-arrived Frau Kaminski, the janitor's wife, a lively initiation into the tenants and their peculiarities.

Anna receives her first weekly wage: a ten-mark note with the no. K 13513. She gives it to her mother, who hides it in her Bible. Anna's brother Robert steals the note and uses it to buy a knife with which he becomes a murderer.

Scientist Martin Fellmann is tormented by an irrational fear of knives and the irresistible compulsion to murder his wife. Driven to the brink of madness by fantastic nightmares, he encounters a psychoanalyst who offers to treat the perplexing malady.

Silent epic on the final years of Frederick II.