Berlin at the end of the 1940s. Anneliese Weyher is working as a switchboard operator. She is living with her aunt after losing her parents in the war – a stroke of fate that has thrown the young woman off course emotionally. Indifferently, she is doing her work; her private life consists of an affair with a black-marketeer. Even when Anneliese witnesses an armed robbery, committed by infamous Wollnick and his gang, she stays lethargic and apathetic – she keeps silent instead of helping the inspector who is a friend of her aunt. It is not until Anneliese by coincidence meets her former lover, the watchmaker Kurt, that her life seems to take a positive turn. But then, Kurt is killed by Wollnick. Although the police finally capture the criminal, Anneliese realizes that she is complicit in her lover′s death, because she kept quiet before. In her desperation, Anneliese sees no other way than to take her own life.

The contents of this entry were funded with the support of the DEFA-Stiftung.