In the summer of 1945, Dresden factory workers send their colleague Kalle (Erwin Geschonneck) hundreds of miles north to pick up supplies. His attempts to travel through the Soviet occupation zone become a hilarious odyssey full of high jinks and misadventures. A rare classic of German film comedy!

Right after WWII, welding factory worker Karl Bluecher, nicknamed Kalle, sets out from Dresden for Wittenberge to procure carbide, which is desperately needed to re-start production in a bombed-out factory. Kalle was not chosen by chance. On one hand, his brother-in-law works at the Wittenberge carbide plant; on the other, he is a vegetarian – and so will definitely manage to find food along the road on his journey. He gets through to Wittenberge and could bring seven drums of carbide back to Dresden ... if only he had a means of transport! But his journey home becomes quite an adventure, complete with a love story, an arrest and many close calls.