South Tyrol 1939. Karl Unteregger, a young respected mountain guide in the Dolomites, has taken on the task of leading a tourist from Berlin into the mountains. The Berliner is named Fritz Ordemann; he is a chief postal inspector and a Nazi official. He is accompanied by Lotte, his fiancée, a working-class girl from Berlin, thirty years his junior. During the climbing tour, the egocentric nature of this man, who is unaccustomed to any opposition, quickly becomes apparent. Lotte, who has been pushed into the relationship with Ordemann by her mother in hopes of a good match, has previously admired his self-assured demeanor. However, here in the world of the mountains, she feels for the first time the moral emptiness of Ordemann in the face of the upright character of the self-confident mountain guide. A change in the weather brings snowfall in the middle of summer. Nevertheless, Ordemann insists on his supposed right.