A seventeen-year-old boy living in Berlin in 1933, without either parent and barely making ends meet, rises rapidly through the ranks to become an SS officer. For the first time in his life, he feels needed by society—valued and strong. He begins a relationship with a young woman and discovers within himself a powerful need to love and be loved. Not long afterward, he is transferred to work at a concentration camp. There, among the prisoners, he encounters his girlfriend and her father.