A lifeguard at Lake Müggel has his hand bitten off and the marks indicate a shark attack. The lake is closed to the public by extending a local festival indefinitely while the city council thinks of what can be done to remove the shark. The public becomes restless having their lake closed for so long and come up with a plan to drive the shark from the lake with large quantities of beer.

In 1938 Hans Zeisig, an apolitical comedian, impersonator and cabaret actor, flees with a Russian passport (instead of American, which he would have preferred) from Nazi-Berlin, and finds himself in the legendary Hotel Lux, the 'lost paradise' of the Comintern, in Moscow. Everyone believes that Zeisig is a man named Hansen, Hitler's personal astrologer. But Zeisig quickly realizes that he's gone from the frying pan into the fire. In the Hotel Lux he meets his friends Frida and later Meyer again, still passionate communists. For the three idealists an adventure between love and death begins to run his course.

Jan is an absolute heartthrob and a diehard Hertha fan. Katrin is attractive, just as successful and an incorrigible romantic. Chance makes the two the ideal couple. At least almost. Everything would be perfect if the two flagship models of their species did not lapse into primeval behavioral patterns. And so Jan sinks a little too deep in the cleavage of his secretary Melanie, and Katrin can not resist the adventurer Jonathan's lead role.