West Germany, by the end of the 40ies. Every evening, Marianne Vogt, a young single mother who works in a photo-lab, hurries to Munich's main station. Like many women in her situation she hopes for the return of her financé, who has been missing on the Eastern front since 1944.
Baffled by a slight resemblance, she flings her arms around the neck of a stranger on the station's platform. Michael Diefenbach, a late returner, has lost wife and family, is touched by this chance encounter. He takes care of the seemingly deranged woman, that he can't stop thinking about. He arranges contact between Marianne and Martin Juergens, the father of her missing financé. When the embittered, reclusively living old man learns that he has a grandchild, he discovers new courage to face life and starts rebuilding his factory which had been destroyed by air raids. Juergens is a man of action: he has Marianne and Wuschi to live with him in his empty villa. But the old man's luck has one flaw. Since Marianne and his son had no time to marry before the son had to go back to the front, he makes his nearly-daughter-in-law a tempting proposal: Marianne will be the sole heir of his considerable property, if she agrees to carry his - and his son's - name, whose death has been confirmed by the Red Cross in the meantime. In addition, the attraktive young woman has to affirm that she will not marry any more. For Marianne this offer is a slap in the face - not only because she has fallen in love with Diefenbach.