1. A modern Bavarian brewer, Emanuel Holzbauer, faces a sales crisis and targets his competitors to save his brewery. 2. In 1567, Protestant merchant Johann Christof Paumgartner—outlawed by church and state—compassionately aids the poorest in his town.
3. A fairy-tale rivalry: peasant boy Franz Niederholzer learns a harsh lesson about greed when he mistakes ordinary metal for gold.
4. A Moritat set during hyperinflation, as shopkeeper Max Geiger is forced to desperate measures to survive.
5. April 9, 1865: In her diary entry on the Confederacy’s surrender, Missis Marilyn Haley-Care confronts the illusion of freedom that costs the enslaved Ben his life.
6. A musical conversation piece finds Laura Wohlbrück passionately campaigning to humanize industrial labor, earning unexpected acclaim.
7. At displaced Walter Gladek’s wedding, a friend’s song about a hunter’s horn rekindles memories of building an industrial enterprise in their homeland.