Bernhard works as a warehouse clerk in Munich. After being sentenced to probation for a physical altercation with a right-wing extremist, he could no longer continue his engineering studies. Bernhard meets Johanna. She comes from a well-to-do family; her father is a real-estate developer and her brother is in the diplomatic service. Bernhard wants to share his roots with her, so the two go to Prague, where he lived until the end of the war. But her father disapproves of the trip to the Eastern bloc. When Bernhard finds out that he owes his chance to develop new technology, which led to his career advancement, to his girlfriend’s father, he is upset …

This critically well-received independent German film production was made and first seen in 1970, but did not receive general release until 1971. A group of five scientists have invented a machine which will unravel the whole fabric of time and space but have managed to blot the full memory of their achievement from their minds. They did this to prevent the complete destruction of space-time as we know it. However, they also programmed themselves to remember everything if someone uses the key words "a big grey-blue bird." Gangsters bent on world domination and a young documentary film-team track down these scientists, each attempting to learn their secrets for completely different reasons.