Luise Bethke-Zitzman

It can hardly be said that things are peaceful in the Berlin apartment building where the film's story takes place. There are constant clashes between the residents – and sometimes that's quite literal: for example, when the widow Bock hid some explosives among the bricks, which detonated when the building's thieving doorman lit them in his stove.

In Vienna, during the 1848 Revolution, opera singer Antonia Corvelli marries Detlev von Blossin, a rich landowner. But, as she refuses to give up her career, her infuriated husband returns to Pomerania without her. After falling into the clutches of the cruel and wicked count Stefan Oginski, whose lover she unfortunately becomes, Antonia has no other choice but to pass for dead in order to escape him. She then returns to Italy where she joins small theater companies under various aliases. Until one day she is overtaken by her fate...

Musician Eduard Boeckel wants to settle down and marries laundry owner Lisbeth Timm. He brings his friend August Garfs into the marriage, and the housekeeper Alwine quickly sets her sights on him. In his new position, Boeckel invents a laundry detergent with unfortunately disastrous consequences: the laundry becomes brittle, and the first major marital spat ensues. Eduard flees to his fellow musicians, gets drunk, and seeks solace with Alwine. When she drives him away, he returns contritely to his wife, who forgives him. And now she also knows what is truly wrong with their marriage: her Eduard misses his profession. From now on, he makes music, and she does the laundry.

Edith Gedeye, the ward of Consul Schober, wants to meet and stay with Harald, her fiancee. On the morning of her intended departure from the house, the manservant Winkelmann finds the corpse of the consul. Suspicion quickly falls on both Edith and Harald, because the Consul had a fight with Edith about Harald and Harald has been in need of some money for a long time.