Anneli Granget

In wartime Berlin, a factory foreman, Otto Quangel and his wife, Anna learn that their only son, Paul, has been killed in action in France. In their grief, the couple decide to take action against the Nazi regime. They create their own form of resistance, writing postcards urging people to resist Hitler and the Nazis and quietly distributing the postcards around Berlin. Various people enter the picture, showing the fear and distrust of the times. People, such as the actor Harteisen, find the cards and race to turn them in, lest they be found with them and come under suspicion. The police and the Gestapo are baffled for over a year, but finally find the source of the cards. The Volksgerichtshof sentences the Quangels to death.

Through an intrigue, Franz Moor manages to have Karl, his brother, disinherited and disowned. He then founds a band of robbers and becomes their captain. Franz wants to win over Karl's fiancée Amalia and fakes Karl's death, and later the death of his father, whom he has locked up in a tower. Karl has to answer for ever greater crimes committed by his gang and increasingly doubts his decision. Plagued by longing, he leads the gang to his father's castle, where he speaks to Amalia once again in disguise. He frees his father from the dungeon, but he dies of fright when he learns that his son has become a criminal. Franz commits suicide when the robbers storm the castle. As Karl has conspired to the death of his gang, a happy future with Amalia is out of the question; under these circumstances, Amalia wishes him dead. Karl kills her, renounces his gang and his life of crime and hands himself over to the law.