[1] The film shows the events leading up to Bismarck being dismissed by Wilhelm II of Germany and the dilettantes who surround him.
An unscrupulous schemer plays on the king's desire to lead and so persuades him to dismiss his chancellor.
This results in a disastrous two-front war by destroying Bismarck's treaty with Russia and leaving him to lament with the question of who would complete his work.
The film ends with a postscript stating that Germany's misfortunes from 1890 to 1933 were the result of Bismarck's dismissal and that a nation's fate depends on its personalities, not its institutions.
[3] The Dismissal was first shown in the small town of Stettin on 15 September 1942, to gauge whether the film should receive a general release.