Young German POW Mark Niebuhr, ex-soldier of an infantry battallion arrives with a transport in Warsaw in October 1945. A POlish woman thinks she recognizes him as the SS-man who shot her daughter during a razzia in Lublin.
Niebuhr observes how she talks to a guard and points in his direction him. But he does not understand what she is saying.
He is isolated from his group and send to solidary confinement without knowing why. The investigation is led by a Polish officer of the same age as Niebuhr. He is ordered to write down his resume but every time he has finished the officer pulls the paper to pieces as if he hopes that Niebuhr will eventually stop pretending that he is simple soldier by the name of Niebuhr. Nobody ever tells him the reason for his arrest and the interrogations. Helplessly he has to obey the guard's orders. After four months he brought to a cell with political prisoners who confront him with deep contempt. When deployed to forced labour it is always him who is ordered to the most dangerous jobs in Warsaw's detrital landscape.
When saving a child he breaks his arm, is send to a hospital where he finally that he is the subject of a murder investigation. After his tay in the hospital he is put in a cell with a German prisoner, still a follower of the old fascist and supporter of the old hierachy. Niebuhr who considers himself innocent is welcomed by those who in fact commited the kind of crimes he is accused of. Slowly he begins to see through them, isolated himself from them, defends himself but also comes to understand the enormous guilt that he too is entangled in. After eight months is innocence is proven, the woman had been mistaken and Niebuhr is released.