Although she is known as a patron of the arts, a graceful duchess nevertheless refuses her nephew to marry an enterprising actress in this German melodrama starring Kathe Dorsch and silent screen legend Henny Porten. When Philine (Hilde Krahl), the troupe's ingénue, is rejected as proper marital material by the Duchess of Weissenfels (Porten), Karoline Neuber (Dorsch) creates such a furor that she is banished from the country. A performance at the court at St. Petersburg also ends in disaster for the unhappy actress and abandoned by all, Karoline dies a suicide.

When the famous singer Grace Collins got off the plane that had flown her a remote place in Northen Africa little did she know she would meet love and adventure there. If she came there, it was to visit Sir Collins, her stepfather. Falling in love was not on the agenda but how could she resist the charm of Nic Brenten, an alluring and idealistic Dutch engineer? Butcan devotion and generosity really compete with the greed of someone like Sir Collins, a cynical financier who wants to dispossess the locals of the copper mine Brenten helps them to develop ?...

Professor Mauthner, after many years of exile (having emigrated in 1933 to the USA), returns to Germany in 1948. He can in fact return to his teaching post, but the rejection and petty intrigues of his reactionary colleagues and students make his work almost unbearable.