The two brothers Gustav and Ernst Nonnenmacher, both born at the beginning of the 20th century, experience World War I, the Weimar Republic, the Hitler dictatorship, World War II, and post-war Germany in very different ways. While Gustav grows up in an orphanage, trains as a wood sculptor, serves as a JU52 pilot in World War II, and works as a sculptor after the war, Ernst is raised by his mother, becomes a petty criminal, and lives in a community of need with a prostitute. Konstantin Wecker writes about him: “I met Ernst 25 years ago in the Mainz Unterhaus as a person who was sent to a concentration camp as an asocial and unfit for military service. They tried to strip him of his dignity, but he remained an upright antifascist. I dedicated the song about Sturmbannführer Meier to him.”.