Using the example of three generations of a Hamburg working class family, the rise of the working class from the founding of the Wilhelmin Empire to the First World War, over the time of the Weimar Republic and National Socialism to the destruction of the Third Reich.

A ship from the GDR fishing fleet is on its way home. The work is done, the hold full of fish. Captain Nipmerow could be satisfied with that, but he has a completely different problem to deal with - a matter about which he also owes the shipping company a statement.

It is nighttime, church bells ring in the distance, and the wind whistles through the trees. A man wearing a coat, hat, and carrying a flashlight sneaks around the house of interior designer Patricia Harrison. The kitchen window is open, allowing the stranger to gain access to the villa. He seems to be looking for something, but is interrupted by Patricia's sudden appearance. The man tries to strangle the woman, but the victim grabs a knife and kills the stranger in self-defense. Although the interior designer repeatedly insists in the following days that she has never seen the man before, evidence mounts that this is not true.

In 1920, Michael, the son of a German laboring man, decides to travel to Russia. As "red horseman" he wants to support the socialist revolution and fight for the welfare of the working class. The journey towards the east turns out to be both a big adventure and a severe ethical test for the young man. He has to escape the German Armed Forces and ends up at a traveling circus where he falls in love with Fanny, a dressage rider. He overcomes the temptation to stay with her at the circus and - after briefly joining a gang of teenage thieves - he eventually boards a ship heading east. Aboard the ship he finds out that the seamen are transporting weapons for the hostile members of the White Army.

Film by Hanns Anselm Perten.