A life-threatening heart attack confines Richard Roth, a father in his late fifties, to the hospital bed. There, he begins to wonder what will become of him and his life and what has happened to his four daughters.

His youngest daughter Nanny, who still lives with her father, calls her three siblings to Weimar to visit their father. Ruth, a dedicated engineer who actively embodies party ideals, is the most similar to her father. Despite her professional success, she lives a lonely life. Eva gave up her job as a teacher to concentrate on playing the role of an attractive surgeon's wife, but everything fell apart when her husband left her. And Gerda is pregnant but separated from her husband, who has taken on the responsibility of raising the couple's two older children. 

After recovering from his illness, Roth wants to straighten out his daughters' problems, but he soon realizes that everyone must to take responsibility for their own lives. 

Based on a book by Walter Stranka, the director's brother.