The film is based on the life of Wilhelm Furtwängler, Germany’s leading conductor and head of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra during the Second World War. One of the most spectacular and renowned conductors of the 1930s, Furtwangler's reputation rivaled that of Toscanini's. In his civilian guise, Major Steve Arnold of the US Army is an insurance salesman. Following the fall of the Third Reich he is given the task of establishing links between Furtwängler and key figures in the Nazi regime, including Hitler himself. Major Arnold’s commanding officer wants ‘proof’ that the conductor collaborated with the Nazis. With the help of his assistants - Emmi Straube (the daughter of a senior Nazi general who was executed for plotting Hitler’s assassination) and Lieutenant David Wills (a German Jew who was sent to the US by his parents at the start of the war, who returns as a member of the US army), Arnold questions members of the orchestra and Furtwängler himself, hoping to find evidence of Furtwängler’s close relationship with Hitler.