Leny Marenbach

On his travels, Paul, a journeyman from northern Germany, runs into a childhood friend, Lisei, a puppeteer's daughter. They fall in love and get married. Together with Lisei's father, the young couple moves to Paul's hometown. Although Paul himself is accepted - even respected - by the stuck-up and snooty citizens, the young woman is rejected by the town dwellers, who are imbued with class arrogance. Paul stands up for his wife but the scorn and abuse heaped on her weigh heavily upon him.

The engineer Wolff Benningsen (Volker von Collande), a self-assured and über-obnoxious jingo jerk meets the young art student Vika von Demnitz (Leny Marenbach) while climbing in the Alps. One get's the idea that he would like to knock her over the head with a club and drag her to his cave but since this is out of fashion he decides to stalk her and annoy her heavy-handedly into a full submission. Understandingly, she instantly dislikes the lad and tries to shake him off. She succeeds a few times but then starts to suffer from some kind of Stockholm syndrome and falls for him. But that's not enough for him, being an infantile egoist he wants to tame the "wild bird" fully and break every last bit of her own will. It's all hard to believe if you haven't seen it yourself.

Heinz Rühmann plays the "model husband" who, when his bored wife threatens to leave him, embarks on an adventurous night.

Nora and Peter constantly fight and wish to divorce. Nora's uncle Eberhard, however, believes the two belong together and comes up with a plan to bring the two back together again: as a lawyer, who is processing the divorce, he explains to them that the paperwork for the divorce is completed, but will only go into effect once they undertake a reconciliation attempt. For the first reconciliation meeting, Eberhard enlists the help of his friend Christa and together, they turn Nora into such a hot tamale, that Peter burns with jealousy that any other man might look at her. At the second meeting of the two, which takes place a year later (how long do divorces in Nazi Germany take?!?!), Nora plays the girl abandoned by everyone. In the interim, she's given birth to Peter's son -- which apparently does not count as a reconciliation -- and Peter has become a successful composer. When Nora again disappears after this meeting, Peter does all he can to win her back.

Set against the backdrop of the 1900 Boxer Rebellion...

During a house concert, the Bach family gets a visit by their son Wilhelm Friedemann, who has just given up his position in Dresden because he no longer could endure the reprisals of his superiors.

On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, Sister Angelika bids her boss, Professor Reimers, farewell, for she has quit her post. Reimers doesn’t understand the reason for this and since she won’t say a word as to why she’s quit, he asks her to spend the evening with him and his son Konrad. Konrad, however, wanted to take advantage of the holiday to bring his divorced parents back together and sends Angelika packing as soon as she reaches the house. Disappointed and sad, she drives to the airport to meet Captain van Santen, who also invited her to spend the holiday.