Emil goes to Berlin to see his grandmother with a large amount of money and is offered sweets by a strange man that make him sleep. He wakes up at his stop with no money. It is up to him and a group of children to save the day.

Gustav Hartmann is in trouble. Because of the new taxis he doesn't get many passengers in his horse-drawn carriage. To prove what he and his horse are capable of, he starts a trip from Berlin to Paris.

Johannes Breutigam, a successful architect, is confronted with his real life on a New Year's Eve. His wife is cheating on him, his partner Losfeld has betrayed him and his company is on the verge of bankruptcy. Deeply depressed and desperate, he rents a hotel room on the 32nd floor. He writes a farewell letter to his wife and opens the window to jump into the depths. A young woman is standing on the window sill next door, apparently up to the same thing. With the promise to spend the last evening of the year with her, he manages to save her and himself for the time being. This is the beginning of a strange, romantic, comical story that takes place on a single New Year's Eve and in which two people change their lives

The historical background to the story is the transfer of 269 executed women to the Berlin Anatomy Department in the years 1939-1945. The corpses were misused for experimental purposes.