In 1947, an ordinary German family fights to survive in a wrecked Berlin after the end of World War II. The father is very sick, incapable to work and bring food home; his older son, Karl-Heinz, is a former soldier hiding from the police, afraid of the consequences of fighting in war; his daughter Eva is waiting for her boyfriend Wolf and goes to the clubs in the night to bring valuable cigarettes and minor gifts to contribute with the survival of her family; and the twelve years old boy Edmund wanders through the destructed city trying to find work or some food to reduce the starvation of his family. When Edmund meets his former teacher, the pedophile Herr Enning, he misunderstands his Nazi speech about the survival of the stronger and poisons the food of his father, leading the hopeless boy to a desperate final solution.