The year 1914 is not a good time for the love between the young banker's daughter Leonore Wahl and the destitute philosopher and budding writer Werner Bertin.
After a crime is committed during the Nazi era in the Reeperbahn area of Hamburg, the aspiring local leader, a ship owner, needs to find an executioner to kill the perpetrators and turns to a butcher.
This film earned an Oscar nomination for Sound Recording. It is the only film nominated in this category that is among the lost. No negative or print material is known to have survived. Contemporary reviews were scathing, describing the film as a vastly overlong and boring talk-fest.