The stories of four – out of approximately 250,000 – former political prisoners in East Germany.

Paul is unhappily married to a beautiful but ignorant woman who cheats on him. Paula, who has two children from different fathers, is in a relationship of convenience with a tire salesman. When Paula and Paul meet in a bar, they fall in love.

Berlin, early 1930s. Lissy (Sonja Sutter), a young woman raised in a socialist working-class family, marries a clerk who promises her a better life. During the depression, however, he gets fired and can’t find a new job.

Charlotte Kestner (played by Lilli Palmer) was the love of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s youth, who became famous as Lotte in his renowned epistolary novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, published in 1774. After four decades, in late summer 1816, Charlotte travels to Weimar to see Goethe

Sonya, an art student, loves the med student Dieter. And Siegi, a factory worker, loves the bricklayer Eddie. At a lavish Carnival party at East Berlin’s art school an unintentional exchange of partners begins.