Fritz Staudte

Diederich Heßling is scared of everything and everyone. But as he grows up, he comes to realize that he has to offer his services to the powers-that-be if he wants to wield power himself. His life motto now runs: bow to those at the top and tread on those below. In this way, he always succeeds: as a student in a duel-fighting student fraternity and as a businessman in a paper factory. He cajoles the obese district administrative president Von Wulkow and wins his favor. He slanders his financial rivals and hatches a plot with the social democrats in the town council. On his honeymoon with his rich wife Guste, he finally finds a chance to do his beloved Kaiser a favor. And when a memorial to the Kaiser is unveiled in the town where Diederich lives and works, he delivers the address. He stands behind the lectern in the pouring rain, saluting his Kaiser. The crowd is dispersed. Everything is laid in ruins...

A player on a soccer team, where everyone matches together just perfectly, has fallen out of a championship tournament due to illness; which leads to a big problem: who would be the perfect man to replace him? Werner Fehling appears to be the perfect replacement for the sick man. The problem is, he's a bitter rival of the goalkeeper, Jupp Jaeger. Both men love the same girl, Grete Gabler. Grete is the daughter of a senior member of the sports club, which is why she feels doubly under pressure not to do anything to jeopardize the success of the team.

Old captain Barkhahn keeps on going bankrupt with all his business endeavors. He’s made for the sea and not for the land. His newest idea is a family-run bed and breakfast with “Familienanschluß," and so Captain Bräuer moves in and quickly shows interest in Barkhahn's daughter Käthe, whom he met and bugged earlier already. Meanwhile, the bailiff is on Barkhahn's back, and the next catastrophe is on the rise.

The student Hans Kessler is suspected of having murdered the banker Hergotin, who has been found dead in his hotel in Zurich. When a search is launched for an unknown woman, who was seen in the hotel at the time of the murder, Hans suddenly confesses to the deed. The prosecution is headed by Schweda and Hans is sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Only afterwards does Regine, Hans' sister, find out about the events. She is convinced that her brother is innocent and is covering for the actual murderer.

After six years, a man shows up, whom his wife had declared dead. Her current husband is regarded by the son of the once-missing man as his father. Only after many tear can the returning man be convinced not to press for custody of the son.

The mechanic Behnke wants to join the Nazi party to secure a good living. However, after his Jewish neighbors have been taken away, he changes his views. Trying to remain "a non-political man," he withdraws from reality and becomes a Nazis laborer.

Berlin 1952, seven years after WWII. Four women are looking for a good man and happiness in the divided city. Their destinies are loosely connected through one person: the West Berlin dandy and womanizer, Conny.

An interfering mother plans husbands for her three daughters as they come of marriageable age. However she pays no attention to her daughters own feeling until the eventual intervention of her husband manages to bring things to a happy conclusion.