From an official perspective, marginal youth culture did not exist in East Germany. The topic of subcultures was taboo in the GDR, and groups such as goths, skinheads, anti-skins, punks and neo-Nazis were dismissed as social deviations promoted by western countries. 

The petit bourgeouis Weber family lives in sectored Berlin after the Second World War and struggles to make ends meet. Karl Weber, an unemployed cashier, observes from a distance how his son Ernst and daughter Inge participate in the construction of a new socialist society.

The fun-loving, 26-year-old architect Franziska Linkerhand (Simone Frost) works for a famous professor. Yet, she feels restrained by her dependence on him and longs to take risks. When her marriage falls apart, she moves to a small town for a fresh start.

While channel surfing in 2004, Lutz Dammbeck saw the West German TV game-show host Joachim Fuchsberger explain that he had based his successful early-1960s game show, Nur nicht nervös werden (Just Don’t Get Nervous), on an American show called Beat the Clock, which made