Gerta Böttcher

In the summer of 1946, a group of young people meet on the banks of the Weser; together they take a boat to Bremen. Their experiences and conversations reflect the mindset of a youth uprooted by war and collapse, yet lead to the realization that one should not simply drift along.

Old captain Barkhahn keeps on going bankrupt with all his business endeavors. He’s made for the sea and not for the land. His newest idea is a family-run bed and breakfast with “Familienanschluß," and so Captain Bräuer moves in and quickly shows interest in Barkhahn's daughter Käthe, whom he met and bugged earlier already. Meanwhile, the bailiff is on Barkhahn's back, and the next catastrophe is on the rise.

All throughout his entire life, Friedrich Wilhelm Hoffmann let his career run roughshod over his personal life. He had no wife, because he was married instead to his chocolate factory. Now he’s old and gray, and his relatives, who are greedily waiting for him to kick the bucket so they can get their hands on his worldly goods, keep their distance from him. Then one day, an astonished Hoffmann is visited by a young woman named Brigitte, who asserts, that she’s his granddaughter. Suddenly, it all comes back to the old man: as a young man, he had a short, but intense, love affair, which he had to end on the insistence of his father.

Director Brakke has good reason to be happy: he has just received the news that his son, Theo, won first place in the local boat race. To be sure, he had forbidden his son to take part in the competition, because the son's grades in school are substandard. In the end, Brakke sees no other way than to pull Theo from school and install him as an apprentice in his airplane manufacturing plant. Although Theo is received by the other 150 apprentices in a friendly fashion, he behaves in an arrogant and disrespectful tone towards them. He feels himself to be better than them, because his father is the director of the factory.

A player on a soccer team, where everyone matches together just perfectly, has fallen out of a championship tournament due to illness; which leads to a big problem: who would be the perfect man to replace him? Werner Fehling appears to be the perfect replacement for the sick man. The problem is, he's a bitter rival of the goalkeeper, Jupp Jaeger. Both men love the same girl, Grete Gabler. Grete is the daughter of a senior member of the sports club, which is why she feels doubly under pressure not to do anything to jeopardize the success of the team.

During a stay in Terbrügg, a small village in Flanders, the wealthy merchant Fernando Sartorius gifts a bathtub to Antje, the mayor’s wife, with the intention of seducing her upon his return to the village. While Antje is delighted with the tub, her husband, Hendrik, banishes it from their home. When Antje decides to bathe outdoors instead, the lecherous men of the village spy on her. Through a clever ruse, Antje and her maids manage to expose the voyeurs, and the villagers ultimately conclude that the bathtub brings nothing but trouble; they cast it into a nearby quarry. Antje demands a replacement tub, but wheels are secretly attached to it. During her first bath, the tub begins to roll, coming to a stop in the middle of the village square. These events bring Hendrik and Antje back together, ensuring that when Sartorius returns, he fails in his attempt to seduce her.

The marriage of the celebrated operetta diva Vilma and the chamber singer Peter has come to an end. Peter, however, is intent on winning back his now ex-wife. So he’s come up with the idea of a guest performance in Venice, where the two will both appear. Vilma, however, has already found a new man – Niki. He’s a salesman and she wants to marry him. With the help of Annemarie, a friend, who has won a trip to Venice, Peter succeeds in diverting Niki, for he falls in love with Annemarie. Now the way is free for Peter to win back the ex-wife, who couldn’t care if he lived in a hole six feet underground.