A fictional, non-chronological account of the life of the scientist, adventurer and industrialist Lukas Berlinger. The key dates and central events include Berlinger's birth in 1914, his friendship with Johannes Roeder, who was the same age, his marriage to Marlit in the early 1930s and Roeder's joining the NSDAP in 1936. As a chemist and "scientist important to the war effort", Berlinger was not required to go to the front during the Second World War, but it was slowly discovered that he was helping persecuted people to escape to Switzerland. Pressure from the Gestapo cost Marlit her life, and Berlinger fled to South America. It was not until 1968 that he returned to the western part of Germany. He meets Roeder again, who is now a senator and has become rich as a "building tycoon", and meets Maria, a teacher almost 30 years his junior, who looks strikingly similar to Marlit.
Martin Benrath
as Lukas Berlinger
Hannelore Elsner
as Maria / Marlit
Peter Ehrlich
as Johannes Roeder
Tilo Prückner
as Laski
Martin Lüttge
as Pfeiffer
Elisabeth Volkmann
as Halm
Max Mairich
as
Evelyn Künneke
as
Lina Carstens
as
Benno Hoffmann
as
Walter Ladengast
as
Hugo Lindinger
as Pfarrer Paul
