Dr. Berthold Hoffmann, a scientist, is shot in the head while he is trying to pick up his wife from a political rally. In a long recovery process he has to learn how to walk, talk, speak, and eat again. But his travails are not over. The police, in an attempt to cover up their mistake, brand him a terrorist, while Volker, a left-wing activist and lover of the victim’s wife, wants to use his case for political propaganda by labeling him a "victim of police terror." Buffeted between these forces, Hoffmann becomes a symbol of the German people of the time, paralyzed by the politics of the era and in need of creating themselves anew.