In the village of Medela, the village elder Fritz Schmal is buried with great sympathy. Beforehand, Till goes with his father to his property to check on the stork on its new nest. When they join the funeral procession afterwards, the stork has just returned from Africa and joins her husband on the nest. So it comes as Grandad Schmal had predicted. The following flashback shows how it all began.

Germany, WWII: 10-year old Dagmar has just lost her beloved twin brother Doug and her family through a bomb attack. Together with a young girl who worked in the bakery of Dagmar's parents they escape to Bavaria and find shelter at some far relatives of Dagmar's family. The little girl just doesn't feel comfortable in the strange family but soon finds a good friend: Laurent, a 17-year old French alien employee. Laurent is tormented by August, the "head of the family", but cannot defend himself because as soon as he causes a conflict he will be sent into an approved school in France which is even worse. Dagmar and Laurent become very close and become almost like brother and sister, they are all they have and Dagmar even falls a bit in love with Laurent. One day August sees how Laurent hugs Dagmar, he provokes a conflict and at the end Laurent is sent back to France...

Jessie hat es diesmal übertrieben. Wegen wiederholtem Ladendiebstahl wird die allein erziehende Mutter zu gemeinnütziger Arbeit in einem Altenheim verurteilt. Dort trifft sie auf „den General“ Walter Voss Er ist als überaus störrisch verschrien und natürlich geraten die Beiden erst einmal ordentlich aneinander. Doch langsam gelingt es Jessie, hinter die Fassade des herrischen Alten zu blicken. Nach dem Tod seiner Frau hatten seine Kinder ihn entmüdigen lassen. Jetzt sind sie im Besitz von Haus und Vermögen und Voss muss im Altenheim seinen Lebensabend verbringen. Jessie ist empört, denn mittlerweile haben sie und der General einen guten draht zueinander gefunden. Also versucht sie Alles, um die Entmündigung rückgängig zu machen. Das gefällt den Kindern von Voss natürlich gar nicht.

In 1864, American soldiers massacre a Cheyenne village at Sand Creek. Disgusted by the massacre, Harmonika, one of the soldiers, deserts the army and is captured by the Indians. At first, the Cheyenne hold him responsible for the murder of the wife and the son of their chief Grauer Esel, but soon Harmonika obtains the tribe′s confidence.