The story of a murder in the Black Forest in 1943. Anna, a Polish maid working as a domestic servant, is found dead in a pond one day. She was expecting a child by the farmer Rungerbühler, who murdered her for fear of the "racial disgrace" being discovered. Although the police commissioner soon sees through the circumstances, he has no interest in uncovering the case for his own selfish reasons. Rot, a basket weaver who secretly loved Anna, reacts to her death with a physical breakdown of a profane nature: intestinal obstruction. The character of Joachim Rot and his strange fate are based on a real person.