Peter Vollmer (Dennis Hopper), the leader of a small and struggling Nazi group, is visited by a shadowy figure who teaches him how to enthrall a crowd. The figure instructs Vollmer to arrange the death of one of his followers, Nick, thereby creating a martyr to rally everyone around. Following the figure's instructions and assistance, Vollmer is considerably more successful and his group's following grows. However, the elderly Jewish man that Vollmer lives with, Ernst Ganz (Ludwig Donath), spent nine years in Dachau and strongly disapproves of Vollmer's politics of hatred. Ernst disrupts a rally, accusing Vollmer of being "nothing but a cheap copy" of Adolf Hitler. After the failed rally, responding to the shadowy man's accusation that Vollmer has the instincts of a rabbit, Vollmer demands