Der Einsiedler von St. Georg (1916)

Somewhere in the snow-covered Giant Mountains, a man has retreated and become the Hermit of St. George. No one knows the story of his life, which over the course of many years turned him from a wealthy mining director into a weather observer and hermit. When he feels sick and wretched, he sends a telephone call for help down to the valley for the first time. Soon afterward, a doctor arrives at his mountain weather station. During the many hours the physician keeps watch by the bedside of the ailing man with snow-white hair, he leafs through the man's notes to form an impression of his patient. Flashback: In his younger years, Kurt Owers was a dynamic, energetic man who was deeply involved in mining. As an engineer, he had developed a method that could “defuse” firedamp and prevent its disastrous effects. A syndicate was formed, joined by all the ore and coal mines, and Owers was elected its director. When he also found the love of his life and became the father of a daughter, Owers seemed to have found perfect happiness. But then one misfortune after another struck him. A blackmailer put the mining director under severe pressure over a relatively harmless offense from his youth. Then, during his little daughter's birthday party, a firedamp explosion occurred, with catastrophic consequences that even his invention could not prevent. Owers immediately rushed to the scene of the disaster and threw himself into the rescue effort underground. When he could no longer find the way out, he wandered for days through burned-out tunnels and was close to losing consciousness. At last, Owers found a fissure in the earth and crawled out into the open. The experience not only traumatized the man, who had until then been optimistic, but made him age years in an instant. Owers learned that he was believed to be dead and decided to let the others go on believing it: his loved ones were provided for by the life insurance, and under the circumstances the blackmailer could no longer put pressure on him. Owers initially got by as a day laborer, until he was offered a job as a weather observer in the remote high mountains. End of flashback. The doctor grants the slowly recovering old man's request to investigate how his family has fared over the years. The physician returns to the weather station with the good news that he has found Owers's daughter. She is well and has a child. Owers tells the doctor that before he dies, he wants to see his daughter one more time. So one day Owers descends into the valley and goes to the house where his daughter lives with her husband. When a little girl comes up to him, the hermit recognizes from her face that she must be his granddaughter. Since he does not want to destroy his family's happiness, as he fears he might, he places a little chain around the girl's neck as a sign of their connection. It bears a portrait of her mother. Overcome by emotion, the old man then collapses. Owers's son-in-law finds him in this condition and takes him to the hospital. When Owers's daughter returns home and sees her childhood portrait on her daughter's chain, she realizes that her father is still alive and immediately sets out to look for him. However, the hermit has left the rescue station and is heading back home toward the mountains. A weather map in the hospital puts his daughter on the right track. She sets out on the arduous climb to the summit and, just before reaching the weather station, is caught in an avalanche that hurls her downhill. Her father, who had watched her leave his little house, rushes outside to save her. He succeeds, but the exertions and upheavals of recent days have been too much for him: utterly exhausted but happy, the old man dies in his daughter's arms.