The film is a highly fictionalized account of the hunt for a serial killer, as he murders women during the last year or two of World War II. In one of the crimes, a man is arrested who is obviously innocent. An investigator, who begins to unravel a thread leading to the real killer, becomes frustrated by Nazi authorities who believe that revealing the truth will undermine the people's faith in their supposedly infallible system. The detective story gradually evolves into a narrative about the evils of political propaganda and corruption.