Country Dr. Robert Koch is desperate: a tuberculosis epidemic is decimating the children in his district and no one is able to do anything about it. Every fourth child is already sick and the parents must helplessly watch as their young ones die. Now Koch is undertaking to find the cause of the tuberculosis --- something he has already been working on for years --- which has been causing this plague of illness. His work is made more difficult by envy; for example, that of his teacher, who was wounded defending his honor. But his greatest obstacle is the famous Berliner scientist and Reichstag deputy, Privy Councilor Rudolf Virchow: He is extraordinarily skeptical of Koch's theory, that the cause for tuberculosis is a bacteria.
The Italian mountaineer Carel wants to be the first man to stand on the top of the Matterhorn. Since the climb is very difficult, he agrees to try it together with the British mountaineer Whymper. But due to an intrigue this agreement is dropped and the two man try it on the same day with two different teams and then disaster strikes.
Old Meiseken, a gingerbread baker, has been dead for three years, but his bosses don’t know that. They’ve been paying him his pension all this time, unaware that his former landlords have been cashing the checks. When, one day, the assistant head of the bakery, Tony, pays a visit to Meiseken’s place to get a hold of an old recipe, someone’s got to play the part of Meiseken! The fraud blows up in the landlords’ faces; but in the end, Tony gets the recipe book and even a new bride.
Baron von Goret is an impoverished landowner, whose estate is about to go into receivership. And so, for that reason, he wishes to marry off his son Hermann with his well-off girlfriend Helga. But Hermann is in love with the farmer’s daughter Dorothea. He leaves his father’s estate with her and makes his way to Berlin to make a name for himself. He’s not successful in this and, so as not to stand in his way, Dorothea leaves him. Hermann’s aunt brings him back to his father’s estate, where, depressed over losing Dorothea, works tirelessly to clear the estate of all its debts.
Mutz Hagedorn has just graduated from grammar school, much to the delight of her aunt Jenny, who cares for her like a mother. Then she learns from notary Strohbein that she has inherited the hotel “Zur Jungfrau” from her uncle, it is located on Lake Constance in Üttlisborn. On the way there, she meets the winsome Konrad on the train. Both have the same destination, only at the train station, their paths split. When she then stands before “her” hotel, she’s appalled. The “Jungfrau” is an old, dilapidated eyesore, because people with taste put up at the “Mönch”, which is owned by the Leitner family. Both families have been at odds with each other for years. Then, Mutz learns from Konrad that he as well is a Leitner and the owner of the “Mönch”. Now, she wants to be victorious, win the trial once and for all. Konrad accepts the challenge. Firstly, the “Jungfrau” is turned into a modern hotel in no time.