In 1910, the landlord's daughter Agnes from the Steiermark gets to know the diplomat Hans. They have a short love affair and then part from one another. Hans gets sent to Beijing, where he marries and American and has a son with her. Agnes, too, has a son by Hans and moves to Vienna, where she works in a restaurant. She is still in love with Hans and when they once more meet each other, they spend a wonderful week together in Hungary. Agnes, however, keeps the existence of a son by Hans a secret from him. They correspond with one another regularly and experience a lot throughout the years. When the First World War breaks out, Agnes hears nothing more from Hans. Years later, she sees him again: he is a broken man, who is in a wheelchair. He's lost his son and has divorced in the interim.
Joachim Gottschalk, who appears in this film, and who was a much beloved actor in Germany, married a Jewish woman, Meta Wolff, shortly before the Nazis came to power, and they had a half-Jewish son, Michael. The Gottschalks managed to avoid the anti-Semitic Nuremberg laws and the rising tide of anti-Semitic violence in Nazi Germany, because of his immense popularity with the public. Then, in an extraordinarily unwise and tactless move, Gottschalk took his Jewish wife to a social function and introduced her to some of the prominent Nazis, who were present. Although the Nazis were charmed, propaganda chief Josef Goebbels learned about the incident and ordered Gottschalk to separate from his wife. When Gottschalk refused, Goebbels ordered the wife and child to be transported to Theresienstadt. Gottschalk insisted on accompanying them, which Goebbels tried to prevent by ordering him to report to duty in the Wehrmacht.
In November 1941, minutes before the expected arrival of the Gestapo, Gottschalk and his wife sedated their son and then committed suicide by opening the gas taps on their stove. Goebbels ordered that no mention of Gottschalk be made from that point on in the newspapers, but word got out anyway and millions of German women mourned his death. Because of Nazi censorship, most of his devoted fans never learned the circumstance of his death until after war's end.
1910 lernt die Wirtstochter Agnes aus der Steiermark den Diplomaten Hans kennen. Sie haben eine kurze Liebesaffäre und trennen sich dann wieder. Hans geht nach Peking, wo er eine Amerikanerin heiratet und mit ihr einen Sohn bekommt. Auch Agnes bekommt einen Sohn von Hans und geht nach Wien, wo sie in einer Gaststätte arbeitet. Sie liebt Hans immer noch, und als sie sich einmal wiedertreffen, verbringen sie eine wunderschöne Woche in Ungarn. Aber Agnes verschweigt Hans, dass er noch ein Kind hat. Sie nehmen einen regelmäßigen Briefwechsel auf und erleben im Laufe der Jahre so einiges. Als der Weltkrieg kommt, hört Agnes nichts mehr von Hans. Nach Jahren trifft sie ihn wieder: Er ist ein gebrochener Mann, der im Rollstuhl sitzt. Er hat seinen Sohn verloren und ist inzwischen geschieden.
THERE IS A NEWSREEL ALONG WITH THE FILM, JUST AS GERMAN AUDIENCES MIGHT HAVE SEEN WHEN THE MOVIE WAS FIRST SHOWN (except this newsreel may not be contemporary to when the film was released).
DVD-R IS IN GERMAN WITH NO SUBTITLES (except for the Newsreel).
QUALITY (of feature film only):
· Digital Quality? - no
· Sharpness of picture? - unsharp and soft features, but quite watchable
LENGTH OF FEATURE FILM: 89 mins
LENGTH OF NEWSREEL: 21 mins