Each year in June, Bavarian housewife Elke Richter visits family in Halle, in the GDR. There she meets family friend Gregor Pohl, a married carpenter, and they begin having an affair. After her family stops the annual visits due to the husband's promotion in the communist regime, the adulterous couple arranges to meet on other holidays. After Gorbachev's Glasnost leads to the fall of the Iron Curtain, everything changes, and Gregor chooses to emigrate to Canada.
Sunny is the singer of band trying to establish itself in the music-scene of East-Berlin. They play regular gigs in small towns, but Sunny feels out of touch with the audience and her life as a whole. She begins a relationship with the amateur saxophonist and studied philosopher Ralph who writes her a very personal song - but his obsession with death and unfaithful lifestyle is not for her. After getting into a quarrel with a band member who harasses her and telling off a show-host she is thrown out of the band. Abandoned, she struggles to regain control over her life.
Jette and Johannes have been living together for two years when Johannes suggests that they "legalize" their relationship. Jette loves him, but the proposal of marriage terrifies her.
Based on a true story of inmates at KZ Buchenwald that risked their lives to hide a small Jewish boy shortly before the liberation of the camp.
Paul and Paula have had bad experiences with love: Paul is financially well off but has lost all affection for his wife, and Paula leads a troublesome life raising two children on her own. They meet and discover a strong passion for each other. Life seems like a dream when they're together - but their short flights from the burdens of reality are once and again interrupted by Paul's ties to family and career.
In 1983 East Berlin, dedicated Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler begins spying on a famous playwright and his actress-lover Christa-Maria. Wiesler becomes unexpectedly sympathetic to the couple, and faces conflicting loyalties when his superior takes a liking to Christa-Maria.
Uwe Polzin, a highly talented biologist publicly stands the defence of his doctorate and this crucial day prompts him to look back on his life so far. These reminiscences are not altogether positive and he and his family still face almost unsolvable problems. For; while Ruth, Uwe's sister, consciously goes without family life and private happiness in order to devote herself fully to her vocation as a doctor; he tries to reconcile career and family. He has found in Alla, his wife - an interpreter - not only a truly loving partner but also someone who shares his basic view of life. Still, their marriage is undergoing a crisis. Uwe's job has become so demanding that he expects her to cope with a great deal of domestic problems. Alla senses that her husband is exploiting her love towards him and that he expects her only to make sacrifices for him. This is why she is contemplating divorce.
Max Bretschneider pretends to be a communist in order to conduct the last interview with Erich Honecker.