In this book, three generations of the Löwe family are followed against the living backdrop of the 20th century. We see the Jewish physicist Stefan in Breslau, Göttingen, and Los Alamos; chemist Robert in Heidelberg and on the hippie trail; and finally Kurt in Berlin and Bayreuth. During the 2013 Bayreuth Festival, Kurt meets the Japanese Germanist Michiko Kawabata from Hiroshima, who has a German connection: in the early 1940s, her grandfather was the military attaché of the Empire of Japan in Berlin. When Kurt tells her about his grandfather Stefan, it leads to a brief crisis, but shortly thereafter, their interaction turns into a road trip through Southern Europe, following the course of the film 'Hiroshima mon amour'.