Fog in August 2016

In Nazi Germany in 1944, Ernst Lossa, Ivo Pietzcker, a Yenish boy, is transferred to a grim mental institution where he comes under the eye of Dr. Veithausen Sebastian Koch. Ernst, initially identified as a troublemaker, lives up to his reputation and frequently rebels in small ways. He does not plan to stay long, hoping his father, Christian Lossa Karl Markovics, will bring him home and eventually to America, but discharge is denied because his father has no permanent address after being released from a concentration camp.

From the outset, central authorities shift the decision-making about euthanasia from the state to the individual institutions, leaving Dr. Veithausen to direct his nurses in killing patients. The newly hired nurse, Sister Kiefer Henriette Confurius, transferred from Hadamar, is willing to exterminate child patients using barbiturates. Meanwhile Head nurse Sophia Fritzi Haberlandt tries to shield the children from poisoning.

Ernst befriends Nandl, a fellow patient Jule Hermann, and the two gradually become aware of Veithausen’s plans to murder those in the institution. They discuss an escape to save themselves, while the doctor, guided by the logic of racial hygiene, devises a slow starvation method—feeding boiled vegetable soup stripped of its nutrients—that still satisfies his Nazi superiors.

Not long after, Ernst plans an escape during an air raid, but the attempt ends in tragedy as a nearby bomb causes debris that injures Nandl and claims Sister Sophia’s life after the funeral. Afterward, Ernst accuses Veithausen of murder.

Veithausen then orders Ernst’s death, a deed that is carried out by either Paul Hechtle Thomas Schubert or Sister Kiefer (both deny being the killer). In the days that follow, Nandl informs the other patients that Ernst has finally made it to America.