Willy Ehrlich, a native of Dresda, was an honorary president of the Saxon Alpinist Association, a section of the German Alpine Club. Apart from being a strong mountaineer he was the personification of a Saxon in character, humor and cordiality. The film portrays his life which includes 80 years of mountaineering. In an interview, just before his death, when he was 96, the experiences of a man emerge who was the witness of a century of Germany's history: the war, the distruction of Dresdain the well known bombing, the Nazi periodand various economic and political evnts. Willy Ehrlich relates the past with the keen observation of an intelligent man.