Berlin's plushest, most expensive hotel is the setting where in the words of Dr. Otternschlag "People come, people go. Nothing ever happens.". The doctor is usually drunk so he misses the fact that Baron von Geigern is broke and trying to steal eccentric dancer Grusinskaya's pearls, but ends up stealing her heart instead. Powerful German businessman Preysing brow beats his lowly bookkeeper, Kringelein, but in the end it is Kringelein who holds all the cards. Meanwhile, the Baron also steals the heart of Preysing's mistress, Flaemmchen, but in the end, she doesn't end up with either one of them.