When the rise in Nazism foreshadows the worst, Jerzy Sosnowski, an officer in the Polish army, is dispatched to Berlin as a spy.

Before the ascent of Hitler, the city is a hive of frenzied hedonism, full to the brim with cabarets, cafés staging performances and theatres, the ideal city for Sosnowski, an incorrigible ladies’ man, to bed secretaries, actresses and dancers, for the sheer fun of it, but also with a view to trafficking in the information he gleans from these women.

Sosnowski lets himself be seduced by Lea Niako, a German dancer and spy, confidant of the future German higher-ups (from Himmler and Goebbels to Speer and Hitler) looking to make Berlin a monstrous city.