Der Staat ist für die Menschen da

Art and curiosities are her life: Together with her husband Wolfgang, Andrea Steckenreiter fulfilled a lifelong dream many years ago and opened a shop for old handicrafts and original junk. The business was never very profitable, but Andrea only became aware of the full extent of her financial distress after the sudden death of her husband. The shop is hopelessly over-indebted and the homeowner is already threatening the bailiff because of the outstanding rent. Together with her mother-in-law Lucy, she is desperately looking for a way out of her misery. The likeable restorer Ludwig Reiter, who has been silently adoring Andrea for a long time, would be happy to give her advice and help. But the "Trödelqueen" stubbornly gives her admirer the cold shoulder. Until one day she accidentally meets a woman in the cemetery who claims to have been her husband's lover - and has been for eleven years. At first the stunned Andrea cannot believe what she is hearing. But she soon finds more clues to Wolfgang's years of hide-and-seek. She gives vent to her disappointment and anger in a radical way: not only does the legacy of her faithless husband fly into the fire, but the defense against Ludwig gradually begins to crumble. Above all, Andrea wants to find out more about the woman her husband cheated on her with: the elegant Elisabeth von Greifenstein runs a small art bookshop and appears unapproachable and superior. Of course, the two rivals can't stand each other at first, one verbal broadside follows the next. But when Andrea finds out that her rival is also sitting on a mountain of debt, she quickly realizes that they can only save their business from bankruptcy if they join forces. Gritting their teeth, the opponents form an alliance of convenience and hatch a (not entirely serious) plan to restructure themselves financially in one fell swoop: They want to sell a truck full of junk as valuable antiques to a rich, aristocratic art collector. If that works out?