Paul Mederow

In this classic German thriller, Hans Beckert, a serial killer who preys on children, becomes the focus of a massive Berlin police manhunt. Beckert's heinous crimes are so repellant and disruptive to city life that he is even targeted by others in the seedy underworld network. With both cops and criminals in pursuit, the murderer soon realizes that people are on his trail, sending him into a tense, panicked attempt to escape justice.

The film is an adaptation of the 1891 operetta Der Vogelhändler by composer Carl Zeller, with libretto by Moritz West and Ludwig Held, though it incorporates few of the original songs, using them mostly instrumentally or in the background. The plot follows Adam, a Tyrolean bird seller in 18th-century Rhineland, who hopes to marry his beloved Christl, a postmaster's daughter; to secure his future, she arranges for him to perform at court, but complications arise when she is mistakenly suspected of an affair with a philandering prince.

In 1887 in Munich, a rising artist paints a portrait of a dancer. The success of it during an exhibition leads to him being awarded a major commission in Rome, and he begins to move in high society. By the time he returns home he has almost forgotten about her.

In the face of two world wars, Professor Prätorius, a philanthropist and a surgeon, wants to exterminate the one danger to mankind, the microbe of stupidity, as he states in a spontaneous lecture to his male and female students. When he tries to help a pregnant girl he gets involved more and more in her life and is forced to marry her.

Lothar von Pütz and Roswitha von Krakow fall in love and only then discover that their fathers are bitter enemies. When Lothar's father dies, a close friend of his father's, Baron Maximilian von Hanckel, takes the boy under his wing and tries to make peace between the families. He visits Roswitha's father, who begins to hope that he can marry his daughter to the older, but wealthy, baron, who is still a bachelor. When an argument breaks out between Lothar and Roswitha, she agrees to marry Maximilian. It is only at the pre-wedding party that Roswitha and Lothar have a real conversation. Maximilian overhears everything, releases Roswitha from her vows, and brings the two young people together.

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...

Since her father died, rich and carefree Jacqueline Topelius makes magazine covers and causes social gossip with her flirtatious adventures around Europe, leaving a string of admirers behind without much concern. Her sister June, living in Paris, is all the contrary but they love each other just the same. Everything changes when Jacqueline meets Dr. Michael Thomas, who rejects her at first. Now she must choose, and also face the consequences her past life may have on their future together.