Four former soldiers reunite 25 years after the war. Last time they saw each other on the Byelorussian railway station in the summer of 1945. Now they've come together to mourn the death of a friend.

While Dresden is in ruins in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, over two thousand paintings by artists including Rembrandt, Raphael, Rubens, Giorgione, and Vermeer have disappeared from the city’s Old Masters Picture Gallery. Red Army captain Leonov and his soldiers are ordered to recover the lost paintings.