In the face of two world wars, Professor Prätorius, a philanthropist and a surgeon, wants to exterminate the one danger to mankind, the microbe of stupidity, as he states in a spontaneous lecture to his male and female students. When he tries to help a pregnant girl he gets involved more and more in her life and is forced to marry her.
Observing staunch moral attitudes, professor Traugott Nägler, his wife Marianne, and their swarm of children life a happy and idyllic life in a small town. But when their oldest daughter Atlanta inherits a house in Montevideo that belonged to the deceased sister of the professor, the family′s life is about to change dramatically.
