In the depths of the Great Depression and in the waning days of the crumbling Weimar Republic, the poverty-stricken Berlin youth and printer's apprentice, Heini Völker, finds himself torn between loyalty to his unemployed Communist supporter father and his ever-growing fascination to the Hitler Youth movement. Against the backdrop of a severe political and socio-economic crisis right before Adolf Hitler's rise to power as chancellor on January 1933, both the Young Communist International and the Hitler Youth want Heini; however, the boy has already made up his mind. From that point on, things can only go from bad to worse, as Heini, the "Quex", refuses to take part in a bombing raid on a new Nazi dormitory, only to further complicate matters when he insists on distributing leaflets in his old neighbourhood. Is the road of National Socialism combined with the spirit of sacrifice of the eager German youth the answer for a better future and a powerful Germany?