It is 1943, and the German army—ravaged and demoralised—is hastily retreating from the Russian front. In the midst of the madness, conflict brews between the aristocratic yet ultimately pusillanimous Captain Stransky and the courageous Corporal Steiner. Stransky is the only man who believes that the Third Reich is still vastly superior to the Russian army. However, within his pompous persona lies a quivering coward who longs for the Iron Cross so that he can return to Berlin a hero. Steiner, on the other hand is cynical, defiantly non-conformist and more concerned with the safety of his own men rather than the horde of military decorations offered to him by his superiors.
A hunting party arrives at a lodge in the Tatra mountains in Slovakia, where one woman in the party had “accidentally” shot and killed her first husband some time ago.
When designer Robert Meering returns from vacation, he discovers the company he worked for unexpectedly went bankrupt so he decides to visit his old boss. His former employer Banninger liquidated the company and claims that all designs of Robert are his. When Robert's Porsche gets stolen by two thieves, he manages to track them down. When they tell him about 40 Porsche's in a dealer shop garage owned by Banninger things change and suddenly get very interesting.
The three daughters of the Dessau merchant Sellmann move with their father to Prague in 1936, where he accepted a position as director of the Böhmische Landesbank. For the three different women begins a new life, which accompanies the film over a period of ten years.
When a plague breaks out in Hamburg, several people break out of quarantine and make their way out of the city... only to find that the plague is more widespread.
