 Now a banker, Keith suggests that Ellis move to Berlin, as due to hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic it has a very low cost of living for those with hard currency.Through Keith Ellis meets the Waldsteins, an influential, wealthy, and long-assimilated German Jewish banking family, and he and the beautiful and innocent Lili, the youngest Waldstein, fall in love.While studying art with Fritz Falke (a fictionalized George Grosz), Ellis meets many important figures in the history of Germany between the world wars including Walter Rathenau, Max Liebermann, Bertolt Brecht, Hans von Seeckt, and Hermann Göring.