The focus of this wartime propaganda film from 1940 is the foreman Keith, who works at a Polish sawmill, not far from the German border. It is 1939 and the War is fast approaching. The Polish workers at the sawmill revolt and kill the mill's German owner, as well as threaten their German colleagues. Keith flees with the children of his dead boss and joins other German refugees on their way to safety across the borders of the Reich.
After the death of his uncle, the owner of the Rhine based Bockelmann Sparkling Wine, Peter turns up for the reading of the will. Justus Bockelmann, a producer of mineral water, is confident he will inherit the business, but ‘for reasons of moral rectitude’ he has no intention of running an ‘alcoholic business’. The opening of the will comes as a surprise to all the potential heirs.
Widowed carpenter Vincenz Olivier lives with his 8-year-old son Boubou in a small French town. But on the day he is supposed to marry the mayor′s daughter, Louise, his dark past catches up with him: Ten years ago, Vincenz – whose real name is Leon Bernier – escaped from prioson after being convicted of murdering his lover′s sister. Taking Boubou with him, Vincenz, who then and now still denies the crime, flees from the police in a desperate attempt to prove his innocence.
In the very old-fashioned town of Ostend suddenly 13 suitcases are delivered to the hotel, with a note, that O.F. will be here soon and needs 6 rooms (the hotel just has five). This event, probably the biggest in 300 years, starts a small wave of modernisation, yet everybody is wondering who O.F. is. Journalist Stix and architect Stark have an idea how to use this event. They proclaim, that O.F. is a former citizen of the town, who became a millionaire abroad. They tell their fellow citizens that the town still needs modernisation, like better hotels, nightclubs, shops, etc. And soon, Ostend is a boomtown, then a capital. The architect, responsible for the new buildings is finaly allowed to marry the mayor's daughter, while Stix marries the cabaret star and the widowed mayor his new secretary. The only problem is, O.F. hasn't shown up, while finance experts from all over the world are trying to solve the depression problem.
The First World War. The young, English Lieutenant Raleigh is sent to the company of a disillusioned Captain Stanhope. Stanhope is secretly engaged to Raleigh's sister and is intent on protecting his image of an exemplary officer. An attack on the German lines, in which Raleigh also takes part, has turned into a bloody fiasco. Now Raleigh, too, knows the horrors of war, which have already taken their toll on Stanhope.
In the last years of his life, Bavarian king Ludwig II (1845 – 1886) devotes himself to ambitious architectural projects, which strain the state coffers to the extreme. The monarch, who is afraid of people, also withdraws more and more into a dream world at his various castles. His brother is already in a psychiatric institute and Ludwig is also eventually put under the care of psychiatrist Bernhard von Gudden. The king attempts to get out from under this guardianship at Starnberg lake…