During World War II, three German soldiers are withdrawn from combat when one of them, Stroszek, is wounded. They are assigned to a small coastal community on the Greek island of Kos while Stroszek recuperates. The men become increasingly stir crazy in their uneventful new assignment. Stroszek eventually goes mad.
Widowed baker Zürrer has to raise his three children, who all turn out to be disappointments to him in various ways.
Karl Wieser, the Zurich tram driver, is a henpecked husband. When he is chosen to give a demonstration ride to foreign experts, he gains favor with his wife Anni. The mother is also particularly proud of Helen, her older daughter in America, who has made a good match, her younger sister Inge, who is destined to become a world-famous singer, and her son Herbert, who is studying medicine. But it turns out that she is succumbing to her own delusions and deceit.
