[1] In a letter left for her friend Tatjana, fugitive Red Army Faction terrorist Rita Vogt (Bibiana Beglau) relates the story of her life.

In response, she flees, the French police officer pursues her into a parking ramp, and Rita fatally shoots him.

In a conversation with Stasi officer Erwin Hull (Martin Wuttke), Mielke expresses sympathy for the RAF's terrorist attacks against West German and U.S. targets, which he compares to his own similar activities during both the Weimar Republic and the Nazi regime.

The group's two women, Friederike Adebach (Jenny Schily) and Rita, accept the offer, much to the shock and horror of the men.

Explaining that she is a West German, who voluntarily emigrated across the Berlin Wall, Rita shocks her co-workers, who have never heard of such a thing.

To their further shock, Rita takes "solidarity" cash collections for the Sandinistas at face value and willingly donates large amounts of money.

Disgusted, Rita's coworkers explain that the donations actually go to the East German government's coffers and that the claims about helping Nicaragua are just a confidence scam.

Not only has her former lover been killed during an RPG attack against a NATO base, but the West German media continues to broadcast her as a hunted fugitive.

While on vacation on the Baltic Sea, she gets to know and falls in love with a student, Jochen Pettka (Alexander Beyer).

Now married with a child, Friederike is suffering under the Communist system, and bears it with grudging resentment — the same emotion seen on the faces of other GDR residents throughout the film.

In a deeply ironic moment, Rita accelerates, clearly expecting the East German policemen to chase after her like their predecessor in Paris.

And although the movie mainly centers around the trials and tribulations of a leftist-activist woman known as Rita Vogt, many motifs in the script reflect Inge Viett's real life: she really did flee to East Germany along with some others in 1982, having fatally shot a Paris policeman in 1981, and she really did receive a new identity to live under in Dresden.

This is in direct contrast to her angry expressions towards capitalism and visible excitement during the bank robberies at the beginning of the film.