Professor Sonnenbruck is a scientist who is not particularly interested in politics. Even the meeting in 1943 with his former assistant Peters does not change him. He does not betray Peters, who has escaped from a concentration camp, but that is already enough for him. But after the war Sonnenrbruck gets into a conflict of conscience. He thought that science was finally free of politics again only to find the opposite happening at his university in Göttingen. A medical congress in the GDR brings him together with Peters, who is working on a major research contract there. Sonnenbruck decides to visit Peters.

The brothers Theo and Gustav Benthin pull profits through smuggling in divided Germany: Theo in the West and Gustav in the East. The East German police catch on quickly, however, and Gustav is arrested. The small band of smugglers disperses, with Gustav’s chauffer Peter Naumann fleeing to the West and his sister choosing the East after struggling to find work and lodging in the West.

Based on the records of the Nuremberg trial of the chemical giant IG Farben; a story about the collaboration between international corporations and Nazi scientists, whose research contributed to the death of millions. The chemist Dr. Hans Scholz lives through a tortuous political transformation and maturation process. Eventually, he adopts political neutrality and closes his eyes to the fact that the poison being produced in his factory is being used in the extermination camps. Standing before the judges at the Nuremberg trials, he must face the fact that he is implicated in the deaths of millions in the gas chambers of the concentration camps.

The Luisin ridge is divided not only by the river, but also by the zone boundary. The old CEO Högler still lives in the west, the eastern part has been expropriated and is managed by the chief engineer Dr. Tellen. He is working on a new steel production process that Högler absolutely needs. Högler's means to achieve his goal are bribery, espionage and slander. Trade union member Maria Steinitz almost becomes a victim of slander. However, the intrigue is exposed and Hogler's criminal intentions are thwarted. At a large production meeting, the old people's controller Hufland exposes the true culprits. Maria and Fritz Rottmann, a trade unionist from Munich, who have known each other since the days of the anti-fascist resistance, embrace each other.