Germany, Autumn 1945. Fausto Tancredi, a young teacher in history of philosophy, an Italian-American of Jewish descent, is chosen by the State Department to re-educate a group of young Germans imprisoned in a castle in the Black Forest. He will have to face the contempt of the guys, the distrust of a rude US Army major, and the more insidious enemy: the difficulty in reconciling the duty to remember with the need for a forgiveness that opens the doors of the future to a whole people.