This is the story of an unusual friendship between a boy from wealthy stock and a child from an orphanage. It is a story of betrayal and of true love. Not least, it’s a story about the social revolutions of the sixties and the seventies and their associated dreams and hopes, and of what is left of them.
Alexander lives in a wealthy part of Freiburg. He befriends Paul who is growing up in the orphanage right next door – just a few metres away but in a completely different world. Each boy sees in the other what he feels is missing in himself. One is a mirror of the other. For different reasons both young men become involved in the leftist movement that changed Germany in the sixties. Alexander is looking for freedom and Paul wants social equality. Here they meet Fritzi, the woman of their lives. Fate brings them together and then tears them apart again.
Many years later all three of them have to decide what to do with the ideals of their youth. Should they save what has been left of them, or are they like a suit of armour that they should get rid of?
