Werner Funck

In Stockholm a young female law student investigates a series of jewel thefts that have been baffling the police.

On the Dutch North Sea coast among fishing families. the wholesaler and ship owner Bos is only interested in profit and, out of pure greed, he risks the lives of his fishermen, who set out to sea to catch herring for him. One of his ships, a veritable coffin, is to set sail once again, and Bos has the rickety vessel patched up as best he can. To avoid losses in the event of a likely shipwreck, he takes out high insurance on the sloop. For old mother Kniertje Vermeer, this is no reason to prevent her sons Geert and Barend from signing on to the ship. An experienced old shipwright warns everyone not to board this "floating coffin," but no one heeds his well-intentioned warning.

Country Dr. Robert Koch is desperate: a tuberculosis epidemic is decimating the children in his district and no one is able to do anything about it. Every fourth child is already sick and the parents must helplessly watch as their young ones die. Now Koch is undertaking to find the cause of the tuberculosis --- something he has already been working on for years --- which has been causing this plague of illness. His work is made more difficult by envy; for example, that of his teacher, who was wounded defending his honor. But his greatest obstacle is the famous Berliner scientist and Reichstag deputy, Privy Councilor Rudolf Virchow: He is extraordinarily skeptical of Koch's theory, that the cause for tuberculosis is a bacteria.

The cashier, Jürgen Borb, has already worked for 10 years at Dadag in Hamburg and is an example for customer service and company loyalty. His professionalism are matched by the trust of his employers, who, while relating to him in an acceptable manner professionally, desire no closer contact with him outside of the workplace. When Borb suddenly disappears one day, Dadag's directors and Borb's colleagues are surprised. They become even more surprised when they soon discover that Borb has embezzled well over a million marks from the firm. His stepsister, Mette, doesn't believe that her stepbrother is an embezzler. In the meantime, she has fallen in love with a criminal investigator, who, she believes, is simply exploiting her affections to get to Borb. Then one day, the criminal investigator finds a body in the cellar of a house Borb rented under a false name and this man created a phony ID card for Borb, identifying him as a resident of a South American country.