Scientist Martin Fellmann is tormented by an irrational fear of knives and the irresistible compulsion to murder his wife. Driven to the brink of madness by fantastic nightmares, he encounters a psychoanalyst who offers to treat the perplexing malady.

From the director of Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, this is the Passion embedded in a contemporary story. An anarchist jailed for an attempted assassination is told the Passion story by the prison chaplain.