Hinterland plot
In the 1920s, a boat arrives in Vienna with soldiers from the losing German/Austrian side. The men barely survived, either being nearly tortured to death or not surviving the Great War after being imprisoned in a brutal Russian camp. The Austrian war hero Peter Perg, a civilian criminologist, fought bravely for his emperor and spent many years as a prisoner. While still haunted by his bitter memories of the war and the fighting in the trenches, he has come to distrust the government leaders. He is disillusioned not only with the war, but also with the bad way he is being treated by the new government.