Prussia 1730: Crown Prince Friedrich, who later became Friedrich II, wants to flee to France to escape the inexorable severity of his father, the "soldier king" Friedrich Wilhelm I. But the escape plan fails and Friedrich's friend, Lieutenant Hans Hermann von Katte, is sentenced to death by the King of Prussia. Despite all appeals for clemency, Friedrich is sentenced by his father to solitary confinement in the Küstrin fortress and barely escapes the death sentence.