Renate Brausewetter

Gerhard Lamprecht sketches a cross-section of Germany's new post-war society, with its winners, social climbers, and losers, represented by the social microcosm of an apartment building. The gossip-mad Frau Mierig from the rear building gives the newly-arrived Frau Kaminski, the janitor's wife, a lively initiation into the tenants and their peculiarities.

Scientist Martin Fellmann is tormented by an irrational fear of knives and the irresistible compulsion to murder his wife. Driven to the brink of madness by fantastic nightmares, he encounters a psychoanalyst who offers to treat the perplexing malady.

Anna receives her first weekly wage: a ten-mark note with the no. K 13513. She gives it to her mother, who hides it in her Bible. Anna's brother Robert steals the note and uses it to buy a knife with which he becomes a murderer.

Silent epic on the final years of Frederick II.