Disenchanted and bitterly resentful, the historian Dr. Dallow has been released after 21 months in prison for playing piano in a subversive student cabaret. He refuses the Stasi's offer to help him get his university position back in exchange for becoming an informant. He lives in increasing isolation and despair as he tries to deal with the hypocritical social system and the injustice done to him. Things change after Soviet tanks roll into Prague in August 1968. The film, including original footage from the 68 invasion in Prague, is based on Christoph Hein's novella that first broached two taboo topics in East German literature: the Stasi and Soviet repression of the Prague Spring.