Plot

Siggi Jepsen is in Germany after the war in an institution for difficult to educate young people. While locked in his cell, the memories of his childhood during the Second World War come flooding back to him

In the juvenile detention center, the difficult student Siggi Jepsen refuses to deliver something on the subject of "The Joys of Duty" in German class. But not because he thinks too little, but because he thinks too much about it. That class essay becomes the no-time, self-imposed detention that keeps him locked in his cell for months. It takes him back to the time of his childhood, to the northernmost part of Germany, to Rugbüll, where his father, a police sergeant, is subject to the duties of the office during the Nazi regime at any price. In the spring of 1943, following instructions, he had to convey the painting ban issued to the painter Max Ludwig Nansen from Berlin and to monitor compliance with it. The painter was his friend from childhood, even once saved him from drowning. Now, however, Nansen has to realize that the police officer is not to be trifled with when it comes to fulfilling his duty. Even after the end of the war, three months after his internment by the English, he carried out his duties, ruthlessly, mercilessly and obeying paragraphs. He destroys the painter's work with a glee that fills him with satisfaction. Little Siggi tries to save what can be saved, he becomes a picture collector, picture thief, picture hider. In hallucinations he sees all of the painter's works threatened by flames. And his father rages on. Representing him, for such fathers par excellence, Siggi has been in a juvenile detention center for a year and a half.—Aziz