SS Obersturmführer Paul Meissner arrives in Auschwitz from the Russian front. After being badly wounded he is fit only for administrative duty and his first and most pressing task is to improve flagging camp morale. He sets up a chess club which thrives, as the officers and enlisted men are allowed to gamble on the results of the games. However when Meissner learns from a chance encounter that chess is also played by the prisoners and that one is unbeatable, he sets out to discover the truth. But what he finds will haunt him to his death.