The “Border Crossers” of the title are three men who were affected by the division of Central Europe through the Iron Curtain and each reacted to it in their own way: Thomas Schoppe was a singer of the Klaus Renft Combo, one of the best-known rock groups in the GDR; in 1978 he moved to West Berlin, after the turn he tries to restart his career in the East. The Germanist Peter Porsch, who is from Vienna, emigrated to the GDR in 1973; after the turnaround, he is active in the PDS. The Czech dissident Ivan Dejmal, on the other hand, has never left the country despite massive persecution; after the turnaround, he becomes environment minister in Prague. The film paints a very unideological picture of the East-West relations.
