[1][2] Actor Hans Wieland refuses to divorce his actress wife, Elisabeth, who is Jewish, even as extreme pressure is applied on him by the Nazi authorities.

Hans Wieland is given an ultimatum by his former friend Herbert Blohm, now a Nazi official at the Reichskulturministerium (culture ministry), to save himself by divorcing his wife.

Knowing that his wife will die in a concentration camp, Hans Wieland returns home and they drink poison in coffee whilst reciting the closing scene of Friedrich Schiller's tragic play Die Jungfrau von Orleans together.

The film ends with a dedication to the real-life actor Joachim Gottschalk who committed suicide with his Jewish wife Meta Wolff and their nine-year-old son Michael.

[6] Maetzig and cinematographer Friedl Behn-Grund received the National Prize of East Germany Second Class for their work.