A group of German boys are ordered to protect a small bridge in their home village during the waning months of the second world war. Truckloads of defeated, cynical Wehrmacht soldiers flee the approaching American troops, but the boys, full of enthusiasm for the "blood and honor" Nazi ideology, stay to defend the useless bridge. The film is based on a West German anti-war novel of the same name, written by Gregor Dorfmeister.
Historical evocation of Ludwig, king of Bavaria, from his crowning in 1864 until his death in 1886, as a romantic hero. Fan of Richard Wagner, betrayed by him, in love with his cousin Elisabeth of Austria, abandoned by her, tormented by his homosexuality, he will little by little slip towards madness.
A descendant of Count Dracula returns to his ancestral village to take revenge on the people who destroyed his ancestor.
An army war school during the WWII: first Lieutenant Krafft has a strong sense of justice. This has often brought him into disrepute with his previous superiors and he has been transferred several times as a result. With his new position in an officer's school, he hopes to survive the war and tries to avoid further conflicts. However, Krafft is entrusted with an investigation by his general - a supervising officer has been blown to pieces by an explosive charge during an engineer exercise. Although the chief field judge rules the man's death an accident, Krafft reconstructs the events and proves that it was a case of murder. Ensign Hochbauer, who was in the party's favor, is said to have deliberately shortened the fuse during the explosive exercise, as a result of which the supervising officer was unable to get to safety in time.
For Count Egge, there is only one meaningful way of life: living in the magnificent natural surroundings of his mountains. Only hunting matters to him; he even neglects his own children for its sake. Inevitably, this leads to conflicts that result in tragic alienation within the family. These conflicts continue even after the youngest son, Willy, is found dead and Count Tassilo, the eldest, breaks with his father, whose stubbornness he can no longer bear.