Klaus-Pierre is the love-child of a young Frenchwoman and a senior, married German officer serving with the forces occupying Paris. His father is killed before he is born and his mother is rejected by her family of patriots and resistance workers. Sent to live with a maiden aunt in Provence, Klaus-Pierre is surrounded by hostility until his father's family learns of his existence and takes him to Germany. Here he is loved and happy but, as he grows up in a Europe where old enemies are learning to co-operate, he tries to make his own 'Act of Peace' with his French relatives. The result is a horrifying confrontation between the two families when they meet by accident in Provence. Meanwhile, Klaus-Pierre is involved in another quest to come to terms with his roots, as he tries to find out what kind of man his father really was.