Piskov, any idyllic small town in 1969. One day there is an incident that causes a sensation in press, radio and television, but leaves the citizens of Piskov completely cold. All clocks stop and time stops! A being from the future, more precisely from the year 523 to Gagarin, lands in the small town! The skeptical inhabitants ignore the incident completly. Two journalists (Hellmut Lange and Hannelore Elsner) try to get to the bottom of things and ask various witnesses about the mysterious events...
The girl Marianne inherited a motorboat called “Eintracht” from her parents and struggled to get her to drive it with her uncle. There is a row with the new engineer Michel the evening after the first trip. He leaves - out of jealousy. Instead of him, Marianne takes three funny musicians with her who are looking for work. The trip to Hamburg on the Elbe initially ends on a sandbank, from which another barge, the "Petrel", frees them. Michel has now been hired there. After a few complications and pointless fights, because Marianne has long been in love with Michel, there is the well-deserved happy ending.
The story of Johann Friedrich Böttger, an apothecary’s apprentice and alchemist’s assistant. Fleeing from the Prussian King, he goes to Saxony, where King Frederick August the Strong takes him to a fortress and demands that he create gold. Böttger is equipped with everything he would need for the task, but he has known for a while that actual gold production is a myth and instead experiments with porcelain—white porcelain, as the Chinese are said to possess. In 1709, he finally succeeds in surprising the King with the "white gold," the first white porcelain made in Europe, he hopes for freedom.
A story about a family after the Second World War. The petty bourgeois cashier Karl Weber of Berlin observes from a distance how his son Ernst participates in the building of a new socialist society. Karl does not understand Ernst's visions, instead he confides in his other son Harry. However, Harry becomes involved in illicit business and Karl quickly realizes that it would be best to join his son Ernst in the citizen-owned factory.