Episode list

Cologne, 1947. The Rhine metropolis has been completely destroyed. For the people, the end of the war does not mean the end of the struggle for survival. On the contrary, the winter of 1946/47 was the hardest of the century. Smuggling, stealing, black market: "In bad times all this is allowed," says Cardinal Frings. From now on, "Fringsen" is a survival strategy. But the carnival, which the people of Cologne are carefully rediscovering, also offers a short break from everyday hardship. Hungry, defeated and tired, people don't want to just give themselves up to despair. One of them is Anna Roth (Christiane Paul). Her husband Adam (Ernst Stötzner), a Jew, has been missing for six years and there is little hope that he survived. The seamstress keeps her extended family afloat with hamsters, endless queues and bartering. Daughter Sophie (Sarah Horváth) has an illegitimate son, Paul (Luis Vorbach), and an Italian husband, Francesco (Adam Vacula). While Evchen (Muriel Wimmer), her youngest, tries to write songs for the carnival, Michel (Jonathan Berlin) skips school. He smuggled copper and lead over the ladder to heaven - that's what the mined forest roads to Belgium are called because of their deadly danger. Thanks to Anna's tireless energy, the Roths have found a modest idyll in the basement of their bombed-out house. However, the quarter in which the ruins are located is to be replaced by barracks built by the Belgian occupying forces. Armin Zettler (Axel Prahl) has already bought most of the rubble plots for this purpose. Anna doesn't want to do business with the insidious ex-party bigwig who keeps stalking her. She suspects he denounced her husband, but has no proof. Hopefully Zettler will be put on trial in the tribunal proceedings, to which Anna is also invited as a witness. Meanwhile, she fears for her little grandson Paul, who was caught stealing groceries in the Belgian barracks. The Roths are visited by Belgian officer Valmund (Nikolai Kinski). The young lieutenant falls in love with Sophie and, not entirely unselfishly, ensures that her husband Francesco is arrested. In this difficult situation, Anna is helped by the farmer Josef Halfen (Henning Baum), a helpful person whom she met while hamsters. While she gives him piano lessons, they both experience moments of happiness. But then Zettler's youngest son, the railway policeman Bruno (Lucas Reiber), is shot during a raid on the freight yard. Suspicion falls on Michel, who was present at the secret action. The police search the Roths' house and arrest Anna on suspicion of receiving stolen goods. Suddenly Adam is in the basement apartment. He survived the Mauthausen concentration camp and found his way back to his family via Hungary. He also has a score to settle with Zettler.

When Anna returns from prison, she embraces her husband Adam again after six long years. Her feelings for the farmer Halfen, whom she has met in the meantime, do not make the situation any easier. Anna and her husband have become estranged, but the common concern for their son Michel, who is wanted by the police, brings them together again. The desperate boy seeks help from Zettler's son Gerhard, not realizing that his supposed friend has blamed him and now wants to get rid of the unwanted accomplice. Anna and Halfen, who are looking for Michel on the ladder to heaven, arrive too late. With the opening of the carnival season, Anna finds solace and distraction in the hustle and bustle of society. Life somehow goes on. Anna and her husband testify as witnesses in the tribunal trial, in which Zettler's dark past is to be dealt with. Adam blames the former local group leader for his admission to the concentration camp, but cannot provide the necessary evidence. Zettler denies all guilt and actually receives the "clean bill of health". Enraged by the acquittal, Adam wants to take the law into his own hands, but he is not a murderer, he cannot judge Zettler. However, the confrontation with Adam has an effect, because the greedy old Nazi has a lot to lose. He ruthlessly exploited the plight of persecuted Jews to take all their jewelry. He is said to have enabled them to escape, but no one he "helped" has ever been heard from again. Now he wants to emigrate to South America, but his prey is not enough for him. He also wants to quickly complete the sale of the district to the Belgians. To be on the safe side, he has had all the necessary papers transferred to his wife Hermine's name - but she is now making her own plans. She endured too much injustice at the side of her hot-tempered husband, and that should now be the end of it. When Hermione rebels for the first time in her life, Anna steps to her side. She protects Hermione from Zettler's outburst of violence, a success that encourages Anna. Together with her family, she is now concocting a ruse to put a stop to Zettler's craft once and for all.