The film is based on "The Journey", an autobiographical novel of B.Vesper, the son of a famous Nazi poet and later companion of terrorist G. Ensslin. The book is considered as the "heritage of an entire generation". A solitary example represents in recognizable and enlarged form the heart of everything dear to "the 68ers". Those born in wartime learn in "the new beginning" to think over the past. Instead of model father figures, they have to deal with their father's guilt. Hence their angry, moral demands which, after the student revolts, result in resignation or the blind hate of terrorism. The film tells of two introspective, contradictory stories of father and son. The one, interwoven as a story through the other, tells of the flight of a young father and his five-year old son from terrorism. The other concerns the childhood and growing up of the father himself, who in conflict with his own Nazi father turns first to rebellion and finally to terrorism.