Ursula Voß

Theodor Fontane's novel about a young girl who as a teenager marries a stiff bureaucrat, has a love affair out of boredom and loneliness and has to suffer the consequences years later should be well known.

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Berlin, 1890: Werner Ludtke is only nine years old, but this son of a shoemaker is already in love with his playmate, Felicitas von Graefe. At first, her father just laughs about this infatuation; but as the children start to grow up, the class-conscious gentlemen doesn’t find this crush all too swell. Werner’s mother has a solution: her son must join the Army and go far away from Felicitas.

The film centres around the young woman Erika, desperately seeking for love and escape from the depression of the times, drifting, and in the end becoming involved with a circle of rich people who sell goods for sexual favours.

The pianist Angelika Rink is exhausted from her chasing after success and is looking for peace and quiet in her hometown. Here, she sees her childhood friend Dr. Manfred Claudius again, who is running a country clinic with a lot of idealism. They both still love one another, but neither is prepared to give up his/her career for the other.

After World War II, scores of refugees leave in search of a new home. They now stand in the hall of a large mansion, waiting to receive their deeds of ownership for sections of land that the lord of the manor had left behind after he fled. Among them is young Jeruscheit who, during her travels, had to bury one of her own children. Her husband has been declared missing, and up until now she has had little purpose in life. But then she discovers it: to work, to build, and to help others. And maybe someday Jeruscheit will find her family.