Ernst Stahl-Nachbaur

When the police in a German city are unable to catch a child-murderer, other criminals join in the manhunt.

After returning from a concentration camp, Susanne finds an ex-soldier living in her apartment. Together the two try to move past their experiences during World War II.

Idle intellectuals Albrecht, Octavia and Äls, are given to quoting and emulating their philosopher hero, Nietzsche. Albrecht later contracts typhus bringing the foster child gravely ill Äls out of an infected area.

Vienna glove-sales-lady Christl falls in love to Czar Alexander. Metternich tries to use this to keep him out of the conferences of the Vienna Congress from 1815.