At the end of the 1950s, the puppeteer Sebastian Fußberg travels through the country, playing plays that generations before him have played - "Knight, Death and Devil" and "Stülpner Karl", for example. He takes in a young man, Achim, the grandson of his old friend who was murdered in a concentration camp. This memory weighs on him like a debt, because he himself was released in 1943. In Achim he sees his possible successor as a puppeteer. A little later, Fußberg takes in the girl Marianne, whom he takes away from a dubious life on a construction site. The relationship between Fußberg and the young people, however, does not last. The boys do not understand his psychological turmoil and his guilt complex and leave him. He himself finally frees himself from the past by burning dolls kept hidden in the cellar, effigies of former enemies.
At the end of the 1950s, the puppeteer Sebastian Fußberg travels through the country, playing plays that generations before him have played - "Knight, Death and Devil" and "Stülpner Karl", for example. He takes in a young man, Achim, the grandson of his old friend who was murdered in a concentration camp. This memory weighs on him like a debt, because he himself was released in 1943. In Achim he sees his possible successor as a puppeteer. A little later, Fußberg takes in the girl Marianne, whom he takes away from a dubious life on a construction site. The relationship between Fußberg and the young people, however, does not last. The boys do not understand his psychological turmoil and his guilt complex and leave him. He himself finally frees himself from the past by burning dolls kept hidden in the cellar, effigies of former enemies.