Jürgen Hartmann

In the spring of 1965, Polish citizen Sheybal visits the town of Genthin. He knows his way around the sugar factory. He had to work there as a prisoner of war during the Second World War. He suffered a life-threatening accident. Now he is looking for the people or their relatives who helped him.

On the occasion of the GDR Landeskulturgesetz (Law on the Conservation and Protection of the Environment), passed in 1970, the speaker explains the various aspects of environmental protection through vivid, visually pointed examples. The film repeatedly refers to the fundamental contradiction between exploitation and preservation of nature in a developed industrial state but is unable to resolve it.