Despite the film's English title
Knife in the Head
, Hoffman (Bruno Ganz), a scientist, is shot in the head by the police while he is trying to pick up his wife from a political rally. Upon awakening, Hoffman finds that he has lost all memory of who he is and why the police were after him. At first, he is also paralyzed, unable to move or care for himself. As he recovers the use of his faculties, his search to discover what was really at stake during the rally leads him to take some harsh measures of his own.