Gunter Lamprecht, who played Franz Biberkopf in Fassbinder's epic, Berlin Alexanderplatz, here stars in the biographical story of a world champion strongman who resisted the Nazis and was relentlessly persecuted by them. Milo Barus, born Emil Bahr, who claimed the title, “Strongest Man in the World” in the 1935 competition, was a circus strongman and wrestler who alienated the Nazis in his Czechoslovakian village by renouncing his Aryan heritage and displaying a love of humanity. During the war, he was jailed for a time after participating in the Czech resistance, but the end of the war did not put an end to his persecution. The film chronicles his attempts to perform in his traveling-circus act, still tormented by ex-Nazis; his escape to Sweden; and his return to East Germany, where his outspoken nature was no more openly accepted than it was in the West. The debut film of Munich Film Academy graduate Henning Stegmüller, and winner of the Max Ophuls Prize at the 1983 Saarbrucken Film Festival.