Ursula Körbs

Young lovers Hero and Claudio, soon to wed, conspire to get verbal sparring partners and confirmed singles Benedick and Beatrice to wed as well.

Ella Conradi, a dedicated journalist from Germany, is in Jerusalem to report about the trial against the Nazi criminal Eichmann. Disgusted by the monstrosities that are revealed, she eventually returns to Germany. There, she wants to cover common cases and trials again. Her first assignment is a murder trial against a man called Ralf Jordan who constantly maintains his innocence. Conradi, who believes Jordan and wants to help him, starts to investigate the case - and thus opens up a political can of worms. The backgrounds of the case reach back to the Nazi period and involve officials of the Third Reich, who in the meantime have returned to their powerful positions.

The young orphan Helga is raised by her aunt after WW II. At the age of sixteen, she turns her back to go her own way. As a rambler, Helga wanders through the night streets of Berlin and has brief acquaintances.

Salem, 1692. Industrious farmer, John Proctor, has twice made love to 17-year-old Abigail, a youth he and his wife have taken in. (His wife Elisabeth has rebuffed him for seven months; she is puritanical and cold.) When she finds John and Abigail embracing, she sends the lass from her home and John, feeling damned, agrees. Abigail vows revenge. Her chance comes when she accuses Elisabeth of witchcraft and manipulates younger girls to support her claims of seeing spirits. The town's minister and politicians want a cause: ridding the town of witchcraft is the ideal repression.