Franz Xavier Stannebein, a young boy at the turn of the 20th century, wants to do nothing more than fly. He carries this dream through his years at an orphanage and into adulthood as a merchant in Spain. He eventually invests everything he has into building his own version of an airship. He later meets some industrialists in who want to his idea, and they ask him to build an airfield in Spain. When he sees the Nazis use the field during the Spanish Civil War, however, he feels betrayed and goes to to protest. There he is thrown into an insane asylum in Leipzig. After WWII, his grandson and other survivors of the family searches for him, only to find the empty asylum... Based on the novel Das Luft-Schiff. Biografische Nachlasse zu den Fantasien meines Grossvaters (1974) by Fritz Rudolf Fries. The non-camera animation in the film was created by internationally known director Lutz Dammbeck.