Hans Mahnke

A car tells its story and the story of its seven owners during the years of the Third Reich.

In 1959, in a small German village, the annual fair is set up. When a carousel is fixed firmly in the ground, a fair worker discovers a skeleton, a steel helmet, and a machine gun. The skeleton belongs to Robert Mertens, a plain soldier, who deserted in 1944 und flew to his home village. But when he arrived, no one wanted to help him, neither his former friends nor the minister, or even his own parents.

Emma Morschel, known as Lämmchen, is expecting a child. So she marries her boyfriend, Johannes Pinneberg. The young marriage gets off to a rocky start: Lämmchen's parents, class-conscious workers, are opposed to their daughter marrying the lowly clerk.

An enormously wealthy woman returns to her hometown with a dreadful bargain: She wants the townspeople to kill the man who jilted her in exchange for enough money to revitalize the town.