Georg Brecher (Armin Mueller-Stahl), a 34-year-old journalist with ambitions as a writer, leads a young woman named Karin (Karin Ugowski) through the Pergamon Museum. Afterwards they both spend the night at Brecher, but split up again the day after. Brecher is a person who lives into the day and is in debt, but drives an American Chevrolet. When he tries to pump his father, a dentist, for money to pay debts to his housekeeper, who he affords, he refuses. Even Krümel, a friend in the editorial office of a newspaper for which he sometimes works, can only lend him 100 marks.