Toni Berger

In 1923 Berlin, following the suicide of his brother, an American acrobat struggles to survive while facing unemployment, depression, alcoholism, and the social decay of Germany during the Weimar Republic.

An account of the events before and after a murder committed by a disturbed businessman in a strained marriage, and what led him to perform such a shocking act.

On the Schiermoser farm tense expectation prevails. The 'Urban', the Schaubleins, surprisingly announced their arrival. In the past, they were welcome as generous summer visitors. But now the shortage years of the First World War prevail. And the farmer's wife suspects lazy parasites in the townsfolk. The city family is indeed facing ruin. Especially since the defiant daughter Rosalie has just knocked out a promising money marriage without regard to scandal. The Rosalie is attracted to the Schiermoser heir Franz. His mother already drives the thought of a 'Madame Bäurin' to madness. Everyone experiences a turbulent time of upheaval. The end of the First World War will shake the social fronts as well as the new machine age.

A plump Munich mortuary worker tracks down and seduces a married subway conductor.

On the occasion of his last regulars’ table in his old neighbourhood of Schwabing, the laconic pensioner Schorsch's pals treat him to a cab drive to his new home in Neuperlach in the outskirts of the city. But Schorsch rather wants to take one last look at his old downtown apartment which he had renovated himself after the war, and where he had lived for almost forty years until his landlord bullied him out of there as the latter wanted to use the space for expensive luxury apartments. Because Schorsch’s wife wanted to move to “the countryside”, they thereupon moved to the Neuperlach development site in the outskirts of Munich. But amongst the uniformly looking housing blocks, Schorsch can’t even find his new apartment, and so, the grumpy cabdriver Gustl becomes his companion on a nightly odyssey.

A musician beds down a prostitute he knows is diseased in order to gain inspiration, an act he later believes to have been a tacit pact with Satan