Throughout his life, Friedrich Wilhelm Hoffman has preferred his career to private life; he′s never had a wife, because he was married to his Chocolate factory. Now he is old and gray, and he keeps his distance from his kin, who greedily await their inheritance. So Hoffman is all the more astonished when a young woman named Brigitte calls on him one day and claims to be his granddaughter. In a flash, the old man remembers: as a young man, he had a short, tempestuous affair, which had to end because of his father′s insistence.
His then love, however, had a son, whose daughter now stands before him: Brigitte. Hoffman keeps the news a secret from his family, but asks his nephew Paul to take on a young woman whom he thinks might be a good match for him. Not long thereafter, Brigitte is working as Paul′s secretary, and a flirtatious one at that. But the dear relatives smell a gold-digger: the avoidant Hoffman had, after all, suddenly and discretely takes on caring for a totally unknown woman. But Hoffman has yet another surprise for this mob...