Svenja Liesau

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel is retired and lives with her husband and pug in a small town. She is bored with the quiet life. When a man is found murdered in a castle, she begins to investigate on her own, supported by her bodyguard.

A gifted pair of lovers: Gabriele Münter and Wassily Kandinsky, co-founder of the German modern-art movement "Blauer Reiter." While he was granted fame, artistic and financial recognition, she wasted away in his shadow.

When the village sheriff Frank Koops settles a dispute between the neighbors Ernst and Rudi, he has no idea that this is the prelude to murderous complications that go back far into the past.

Germany, 1945. World War II is nearing its climactic end. Five-year-old Sophie and her parents are refugees fleeing from the advancing Red Army. They hide in a hotel, where they encounter Nazi officer Scharf and Hitler Youth member Beckmann. As the Russians come closer, Sophie falls into a lift and is knocked unconscious. Meanwhile, Scharf accidentally kills Sophie’s mother and Wassily, a paratrooper, kills her father. Time passes and teenage Sophie works for Soviet soldiers as a kitchen maid in the hotel. Food sometimes disappears, but Sophie finds the culprit: Beckmann, who has been hiding in a corridor beneath the hotel since the war ended. As an adult, Sophie reluctantly marries Wassily and develops a relationship with Beckmann. Decades go by; the Russians leave and Scharf takes over the hotel. Sophie convinces Beckmann to leave, and the pair head for the North Sea, turning their backs on the hotel and its memories.