Cartoonist Michael Roth returns from Swiss exile to his hometown of Munich after the Second World War. He finds that his former friends receive him with hostility, as they have mistakenly linked his hasty escape to the theft of jewelry belonging to the Jewish woman Nelly Dreifuß, who took her own life at the time. Roth is able to redeem himself, however, and also helps another woman, who has become almost homeless, to find new courage to face life.