A social drama plays out in the harbor area of Hamburg: Ballhaus-Else, a prostitute, lives together with her boyfriend Leo, a peaceful bar musician, in St. Pauli. One day, Matrosen-Karl, a thief on the run, finds a hideout at Else's. She is fascinated by the man, who promises her a more exciting and better life. Together they want to leave Hamburg. Leo – who feels inferior to Karl – lets them go with a heavy heart. But then Karl gets arrested after a fight between the underworld and the police in the Kongo-Bar, and Else returns to Leo – and her hopeless everyday life.

An enhanced and sentimentalized story of love, honor, rivalry, and retreat. The traditional laws of the patriarchal environment and severe conflicts of the heart. The action takes place in Herzegovina and Stolac, Bosnia. The film depicts the Bosnjak from a German point of view.

A moving saga focusing on the women in a family that spans three generations and almost 70 years of German history, from the Wilhelmine period through the end of WWII. This film shows that it takes a combination of hard work, political consciousness and family work in tandem to face the tragedies of war, economic hardship and death.

1956 film by Martin Hellberg