Professor Jack Lambert who lives a peaceful, quiet life is stunned when the media proclaims that his kindly old next door neighbor Max Mueller is really SS Colonel Karl Luger, a notorious Nazi war criminal nicknamed the Beast of Berkau. Naturally, Mueller and his dutiful daughter Inga insist it's a case of mistaken identity. His lawyers promise to tie up the case in the courts for years, allowing Mueller to live out his life in peace next door to Jack who is outraged by the prospect. He decides that it is morally unacceptable for the Nazi to get away with murder and although killing him would be wrong, it is the lesser of two evils and therefore the ethical choice. So Jack murders his Nazi neighbor. Then newly discovered German war files uncovered in an East German archive prove conclusively that the man murdered for being Karl Luger was really Max Mueller, a lowly cook in the German army. Jack has killed an innocent man. Ashamed and guilt ridden, Jack decides he must atone for his crimes.