An assortment of diverse characters gather at the Hotel Berlin in World War II Germany as the Third Reich falls.

Prof. Joseph Elsner guides his protégé Frydryk Chopin through his formative years to early adulthood in Poland. The professor takes him to Paris, where he eventually comes under the wing and influence of novelist George Sand and rises to prominence in the music world, to the exclusion of his old friends and patriotic feelings towards Poland.

When a German art dealer living in the US returns to his native country he finds himself attracted to Nazi propaganda.