Two boys from West Berlin, Klaus and Max, live in poverty. They dream of a career in boxing and save every penny in order to buy boxing gloves for training. Nevertheless,  they cannot seem to save enough and so they let themselves be hired by the bartender Klott for a twisted scheme.

Car mechanic Anton Grubske cunningly avoids being captured and taken to a POW camp in 1945. Upon returning to his village, he marries Liesel, the daughter of his former apprenticeship master, and takes over the workshop.

In August 1961, the former Foreign Legionnaire, King, has collected a gang of hooligans with whom he creates mischief in the GDR. After some careless work on a construction site that leads to two deaths, the gang moves to a campsite on the Baltic Sea.

Ed Martin witnesses a murder at the American hotel where he works.

The brothers Theo and Gustav Benthin pull profits through smuggling in divided Germany: Theo in the West and Gustav in the East. The East German police catch on quickly, however, and Gustav is arrested.

The state security service has found out about a plot against the GDR and Officer Alexander Berg (Fred Delmare) is assigned to investigate.

Dr. Blum, a Jewish manufacturer, is falsely accused of a murder. Even when the real killer’s identity becomes evident, the state prosecutor refuses to accept Blum’s innocence. 

In 1973, shortly after the fascist Junta coup in Chile, three men—the worker Carlos, the student Juan and the government official Lorenzo—are trying to flee over the Andes to Argentina. Along the way, they witness the murder of a farmer by Chilean policemen.

Three men – criminals Erwin Lubowitz and Bruno Marquard and waiter Walter Graf – are collaborating on a major bank heist. Construction apprentices Bubi and Julian, who are mainly trying to win the affections of the night club singer Tina, are also unwittingly caught up in the scheme.

In the desolate eastern states of a newly unified Germany, Anna and Lisa plan a series of bank robberies. They quickly become the most popular gangster duo of German postwar history, hunted by the police, but viewed as present-day female Robin Hoods by those in need.