A disaster-movie made in Germany.

On the outside, Martin Dreyer looks like the nice neighbor next door. He lovingly looks after his paralyzed brother and his friends have never noticed him in a negative way. Nobody sees what a monster lies dormant inside him. No one suspects the incomprehensible. Martin suffers from a terrible burden: an obsessive desire for young girls. When Martin meets the young, petite Sonja one day and falls in love with her straight away, he believes in a new life. He asks her to marry him. She is surprised at his quick decision, but then agrees. What Martin doesn't know until then is that Sonja has a little daughter.

In 1942, Friedrich Weimer's boxing skills get him an appointment to a National Political Academy (NaPolA) – high schools that produce Nazi elite. Over his father's objections, Friedrich enrolls. During his year in seventh column, Friedrich encounters hazing, cruelty, death, and the Nazi code. His friendship with Albrecht, the ascetic son of the area's governor, is central to this education.

Sensitive Rieke Sattler has been married to her husband, fishmonger Fred, for over 20 years - but the romance of the early years is long gone: charming outdoorsman Fred has turned into a caustic grump who not only drives away customers at the village market with his bad temper, but also repeatedly offends his own wife. One day, Rieke's frustration gets the better of her and she flees to her daughter and her boyfriend in Munich. Here she meets her childhood sweetheart Bruno again - a dreamy bon vivant who courts her by every trick in the book.

The fall is so rapid that it seems like a bad dream. Just a moment ago, 16-year-old Nadja was a carefree, cheerful young girl, but shortly afterwards the horror follows: the older boy she falls in love with is a junkie who also drags Nadja into misery. Her wealthy parents learn in an extremely painful way about a world they had previously only known from hearsay: their search for their daughter literally becomes a journey into the underworld.

The young toolmaker Gerd Asselt knows how to exploit his acquaintance with the influential Albrecht Maybach for a breathtaking career: With pumped money, he takes over companies in need of reorganization and quickly racks up an entire business empire. But pride comes before a fall...