The millionaire entrepreneur Tobler loves to study people and wants to know how the other side lives - that is, the ordinary man with a tight wallet. He takes part in his own company's competition and promptly wins second prize, a winter holiday at the Grandhotel zu Bruckbeuren in the Alps. To the dismay of his family, he decides to actually go on the trip, not as Privy Councillor Tobler, but incognito as one of the "poor wretches" whose lives he wants to peek into. He is not entirely on his own, however, as he enlists his long-time servant Johann to accompany him and mime a shipping millionaire in the process. The charade seems perfect, were it not for Tobler's daughter Hildegard, who announces the disguised millionaire at the hotel, and through a mix-up involuntarily puts the unemployed Fritz Hagedorn - winner of the first prize - at the centre of attention. Instead, Privy Councillor Tobler ends up in the unheated attic room and is immediately taken on by the staff to do various odd jobs. This in turn leads to a friendship with the supposed millionaire Hagedorn. Servant Johann feels obliged to report on the events to his daughter Hildegard, who, out of sheer concern, travels after him with her housekeeper and really upsets everything with her arrival. Millionaire Tobler meanwhile gets to feel that he is not at all welcome as a poor wretch among the distinguished hotel guests - in this fast-paced comedy about appearance and reality, in which Erich Kästner masterfully plays with the superficiality of people and holds up a mirror to it.
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