In 1945, after the end of World War II in Europe, Karl 'Kalle' Blücher examines the ruins of the cigarette factory where he used to work in the city of Dresden.
First, a good-looking war widow named Karla invites him to put the barrels on her wagon and takes him a short distance to her farmhouse, where he spends the night and they become romantically entwined.
While waiting for another ride, he hunts mushrooms in the nearby forest, unaware that the woods are still mined until an old man warns him.
The sympathetic commandant believes his story and lets him go, but tells him he needs permits from Dresden and Potsdam to transport raw materials between regions.
Karl instead talks the captain in charge of supplies into giving him stamped written authorization and a cart for two barrels of carbide.
This time, he trades the captain one more barrel for a 30-kilometre truck ride (Karl gives him the one with chalk inside).
When one of the oars breaks, they end up stranded on the concrete pillar of a wrecked bridge in the middle of the river with two barrels; the boat comes loose and drifts away with the other two.
He escapes and is recaptured; fortunately, the man in charge believes he is working for the Soviet occupiers and lets him go.
But after filming ended, representatives of the East German Ministry of Culture were worried that the portrayal of Red Army soldiers as comical plunderers would offend the Soviet Union.
[3] Author Joshua Feinstein noted that "the picture spared no one, including the Red Army, in its satire.
"[4] Seán Allan and John Sandford wrote that "it took a deceptively light-hearted look at the division of Germany" and was a "milestone in DEFA's history.