In 1914 Berlin, bank heiress Leonore Wahl and struggling Munich student Werner Bertin fall passionately in love, defying class and her parents’ expectations. Their idyll is shattered by the outbreak of WWI: Werner, swept up in patriotic fervor, is conscripted to the Western Front, while Leonore, pregnant and abandoned, faces her family’s condemnation and a clandestine abortion. Set against the tumult of war, the film explores idealism, social divides, and the personal costs of duty and desire.
Germany 1922 during the Weimar Republic: Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau signs the Treaty of Rapallo between Germany and the Soviet Union. German national, conservative forces then speak of betrayal and anti-Semitic tones become loud. Plans for murder Rathenaus are forged in the vicinity of the Freikorps. The young engineer Horst Bergmann learns about the preparations of the assassination attempt and tries to warn Rathenau.
The armouring soldier and writer Werner Bertin is ordered to the Western Front to France during the First World War. The use before Verdun - with all the horrors of war in the period 1916/1917 - brings a fundamental change of consciousness for the academic from Berlin. The intellectual devoted to bravery by fate develops into a disappointed but rebellious being. He sees more and more the injustices of warlike conflicts and their social causes.
