As the end of the Second World War approaches and the Soviet Red Army is advancing, a group of concentration camp inmates is helped to escape by a Polish doctor. They hide in a wood where they meet other fugitives, who have been there for months, constantly in fear of being discovered. Out of fear of the German army patrols, they do not dare to leave the forest, even as the food supplies run low.

The Riehl family has recently owned a small house in a new development in the countryside. Mr. Riehl drives into town every morning, where he works in a furniture store. The two children still go to school. Ms. Riehl takes care of the household and has to cycle long distances to do some shopping. When an aunt gives her a considerable amount of money one day, she definitely wants to use it to get her driver's license.

The Riehl family is preparing for their vacation in Italy together. But shortly before the start comes the bad news: a colleague of Mr. Riehl, who is now the managing director of a furniture store, has broken his leg.

A story about a family after the Second World War. The petty bourgeois cashier Karl Weber of Berlin observes from a distance how his son Ernst participates in the building of a new socialist society. Karl does not understand Ernst's visions, instead he confides in his other son Harry. However, Harry becomes involved in illicit business and Karl quickly realizes that it would be best to join his son Ernst in the citizen-owned factory.

The film centres around the young woman Erika, desperately seeking for love and escape from the depression of the times, drifting, and in the end becoming involved with a circle of rich people who sell goods for sexual favours.