Part 1: Summer in Ruins
When the Red Army enters Berlin in 1945, Mechthild Evers, then 19 years old, fled to the island Hiddensee. Her only wish is to see her husband once a´gain whom she had married shortly before he had to return to the front. One morning the cry "The Russians are coming" is heard and Mechthild Evers is afraid. But then she cannot believe that the Russians bring her husband with them.
On 8 May 1945 Germany capitulates and everywhere people celebrate the end of the war. At this time Helga Vick is a nurse in Hamburg and the Brits send her to the Heide to care for sick persons. Her new place of work is Bergen Belsen and the neyt weeks will be the worst in her whole life.
Germany is in ruins. Many people are homeless and starving but it does not take long until the trams in Berlin work again and people make their way to the Wannsee. Meanwhile the victorious forces meet at a conference in Potsdam to decide on Germany's destiny.

Part 2: Hunger and Hope
In Germany after WWII everything is lacking. People suffer from deprivation and have to look for bread, butter or coffee on the black market. The secret currency are cigarettes. The American soldiers also take part in the illegal barterings.
The allies want to destroy the German arms industry and want to fetch back what they lost in reparations and demontages. All this tightens the situation and the winter of starvation of 1946/47 follows. The resistance against the allies grows.

Part 3: The Shadow of the Past
Many people, among them surviving Jews, return to their old homes.
Rolf Abrahamson is one of them. He is the only member of his family who survived the concentration camp and now he took over his parents' textile shop. One day he takes a hitcher with him, but when he comes to know that this man was with the people who raided his parents'house in 1938, he throws him out of his car.
The past is still present in the time short after the war. The main culprits are condemned in Nuremberg but it is difficult to define who of the civilians is guilty and who not. In West-Germany there are forms, but the whole system appears to be to bureaucratic. Even former SS officers are employed as people still fond of this troop. In the Soviet zone things are worse and people are sent to camps just if they are denounced. When they return from these camps they are traumatised and have difficulties in finding back into their normal lives.

Part 4: The Search for one's Home
Many soldiers return from war captivity. Some of them are crippled. They have to find their way back into normality. This also applies for millions of Germans who have lost family members or their home. The Soviet administration sends back all the German children who were left in Eastern Prussia.
The division of Germany becomes more and more apparent in 1948 and the Cold War tightens the situation.