Eifel landlady Toni Janssen wants a child, but not necessarily a man. After an alcohol-fueled slip, her ex-boyfriend Hajü, of all people, gets her hopes up. Meanwhile, Heidi accidentally meets an old childhood friend.
The ambitious scientist Franz Walter doesn't hesitate when he is promised a professorship at the university. He immediately accepts, pledges absolute loyalty to the system and agrees to work for the GDR's foreign intelligence service until he can take up his new position. Together with his colleague Dirk, he is sent on foreign assignments to West Germany. Franz soon has to use blackmail to get innocent people to talk. But his superiors go even further: GDR refugees and their relatives are targeted to be psychologically destroyed, forged letters, medical diagnoses, surveillance and wiretapping are on the agenda. However, this is more than Franz can bear: he feels powerless and increasingly isolates himself. When he then decides to steal secret documents for a later defection to the West, this results in an unfortunate chain reaction leading to his arrest and ultimately to his execution...
A story about male hubris, repressed feelings, unconscious depression and the hard struggle for success in a capitalist world where fragility has no place.
In the middle of the Schaalsee runs the bureaucratically precisely defined "fluid border" between the FRG and GDR. One night a storm shifts a buoy of the border line. While the border and measuring troops from East and West meticulously try to restore order, two land surveyors throw their prejudices overboard and tear down the border between them for a short time.
German artist Kurt Barnert has escaped East Germany and now lives in West Germany, but is tormented by his childhood under the Nazis and the GDR regime.
