Am grauen Strand, am grauen Meer (1980)

Shipowner Hans Kirch is wealthy and lives with his wife, his son Heinz, and his young daughter Lina as a respected citizen in a seaside community. He is seeking a seat on the community council and is a successful businessman, something the people in the community resent. His son Heinz is expected one day to marry the pastor’s daughter and take over his father’s business. First, however, Heinz is to earn his mate’s certificate aboard a ship on a long voyage to Asia. After that, he is supposed to return home. On the last evening before his departure, Heinz—lying to his father so he can do so—meets secretly with Wieb, the woman he loves, who is the daughter of a day laborer. He promises to marry her when he returns from his voyage, and she gives him a necklace with a ring as a keepsake. The next morning, his father takes him to the harbor, where Heinz’s voyage begins. A short time after he puts to sea, Heinz’s first letter arrives at his parents’ home. He writes about his first voyages and the praise he received from the captain for his prudence at sea, along with a reward. His father, the family, and all the household servants are proud of the shipowner’s son and hold a joyful dance that evening to celebrate. But Heinz does not come home even after 14 months at sea, although a rumor spreads through the community that he has long since arrived in Hamburg. One day, he sends his family a letter without postage. The postman therefore demands that his father pay the postage before handing it over. His father refuses to pay and thus refuses to accept the letter. He concludes from it that his son has failed and is deeply disappointed. He also forbids his wife to “buy” the letter. Wieb, too, cannot persuade the postman to sell it to her. The postman sends the letter back. A little later, Heinz’s mother dies of an illness, unable to forgive her husband for his harshness toward their son. Fourteen years pass. Little Lina Kirch has grown into a young woman, and she is about to marry the successful Mr. Christian Marten. He is to take over the shipowner’s business in place of Heinz. But Lina earnestly begs her future husband always to keep the door of the house open for her missing brother Heinz. After a meeting of the community council, her father learns that his son has been seen in a tavern in Hamburg. He goes to Hamburg, searches for his son, finds him, and brings him home. But his son has changed greatly, not only in appearance. He is timid and taciturn, takes no interest in his family or his father’s business, and spends most of his time with his sister Lina’s son, to whom he tells seafaring stories. He makes no contact with his old love, Wieb, either. By now she is the wife of the owner of the village tavern, where she also works. At a community celebration, Lina asks the community doctor whether tattoos can easily disappear from the skin. The doctor says they cannot. Her brother Heinz had a homemade tattoo on the back of his hand, but it is no longer visible. For this reason, too, Lina doubts that the man is her brother. She tells her husband and father of her fears, and they take them as confirmation of a rumor going around the community. During the celebration, Heinz rows to the island where he and Wieb spent their last evening together 14 years earlier. On his way back, he meets a boatman in the harbor and signs on for a trip to Denmark aboard his boat, leaving the following morning. He goes once more to the village tavern and finally reveals his identity to Wieb, who is distraught over his appearance and her own situation. She tells him that she cannot leave the community with him to start a life together, because she is bound to her husband, the owner of the village tavern. As they part, Heinz returns the necklace and ring she gave him more than 14 years earlier. He goes back to his father’s house and packs his sailor’s chest so he can leave the next morning and never return to his family home. After Lina tells her father that she cannot live under the same roof as a stranger—meaning her brother Heinz—the shipowner decides to settle the matter with money. He counts out a large sum and takes it to his son’s room. He gives the “strange son,” Heinz, the envelope of money and walks away without a word or farewell. Heinz opens the envelope, but takes only part of the money, leaving the rest inside, then sets off for the harbor and boards the ship to Denmark. The family is glad he has gone. The next day, Wieb goes to the shipowner’s house and tells him about the necklace and ring Heinz returned to her. She says he could only have been the shipowner’s true son, and that doubting his identity had been wrong. Lina, too, accepts this as proof that the “strange” man really was her brother. She wants to bring him back, but her father forbids it. He refuses to accept any of this as proof that the man who came to the house was his lost son. He tells the two women: “Whoever slept under my roof and did not earn even the salt to go with his bread was not my Heinz. Whatever his name may have been! He was not the one who left here 17 years ago.” Because his son has become an unsuccessful man who does not know what to do with himself, he has given up on him. Wieb leaves the house, and Lina weeps in horror, but the old shipowner calmly writes in his ledger.