Der Klosterjäger (1935)

Knight Dietwald von Falkenau returns from his journey to the Pope to the monastery governed by the ruler of Berchtesgaden, Provost Heinrich von Inzing. His mission was unsuccessful: he was unable to have the Pope’s ban on the Emperor lifted. Walti, a boy who works at the monastery, complains to the monastery cook, Severin, about Dietwald’s cold stare, which frightened him. Severin rebukes him: Dietwald has a heavy burden to bear. He once had a castle of his own. It was destroyed in a raid, and his wife was killed. He never saw his little daughter again. Meanwhile, there are two cases of illness in the village belonging to the monastery. The little daughter of Wolfrat, a tenant farmer who lives in a shared hut with his wife and his sister Gittli, is dying, and Wolfrat cannot pay his rent. Gittli goes to the bailiff to ask him to waive the rent, but he refuses. Haymo, the monastery’s huntsman, who met Gittli on the mountain pasture and fell in love with her, persuades the bailiff, without Gittli’s knowledge, to waive the rent. The wife of the wealthy Eggebauer is also seriously ill. A barber-surgeon and charlatan convinces the dim-witted farmer that only the heart-cross of an ibex can cure her, but the bailiff is unwilling to sell him one. When the farmer hears of Wolfrat’s financial hardship, he offers him the money he needs for the rent. In return, Wolfrat is to nail a recently restored figure of Jesus to a cross on the mountain—and, secretly, to kill one of the bailiff’s ibexes and bring him its heart. In dire need, Wolfrat agrees, unaware that the bailiff intends to waive his rent. At night, Wolfrat goes up the mountain, nails up the figure, blackens his face, and shoots the ibex. While eviscerating the animal, he is caught by Haymo, the monastery huntsman, who takes him prisoner. Wolfrat stabs Haymo and leaves him bleeding at the cross. When he gets home, his little daughter has already died. He takes the money to the bailiff, but the man refuses to accept the coins: he has promised Haymo and Provost Heinrich that he would waive the rent. Wolfrat now realizes that what he did was for nothing, while Gittli, suspecting that Wolfrat has harmed the monastery huntsman, sets out to find Haymo. She finds him badly wounded and nurses him back to health. In doing so, she arouses the jealousy of Zenza, the Eggebauer’s daughter, who is herself in love with Haymo and suspects that Gittli has bewitched him. Heinrich and the bailiff learn of Haymo’s condition; Haymo, in turn, learns from Gittli that Wolfrat stabbed him. For her sake, he says at a confrontation that Wolfrat was not the culprit. A short time later, while standing before the figure of Christ that he himself had nailed to the cross, Wolfrat confesses to Provost Heinrich that he wounded Haymo. Heinrich leaves it to Wolfrat to report himself to the bailiff, and Wolfrat chooses to tell the truth. On the way down from the mountain to the bailiff, the whole group—Heinrich, Dietwald, Haymo, and Gittli—is attacked by a bear. Wolfrat saves Haymo’s life, but the bear wounds Wolfrat so badly that he dies there on the mountain. Shortly before his death, he tells Heinrich and Dietwald that Gittli is not his daughter, but a child he found and took in during a raid on a castle in wartime. Dietwald now realizes that Gittli is his long-lost daughter. Since Gittli is officially regarded as an orphan and a “nobleman’s child,” she is separated against her will from Haymo, to whom she is promised, and sent to a convent. She is to be educated there and only afterward told who her father is. She is unhappy at the convent. For Haymo, the whole area reminds him of her, so he wants to leave the village. He resigns his position as monastery huntsman and also rejects Zenza, who loves him. Zenza gives up on him. In secret, she gets Gittli out of the convent and takes her to Haymo. Dietwald and Heinrich, who have learned that Gittli has fled the convent, also go to Haymo’s, where they suspect she is. They both decide that since Gittli has already fled to Haymo, he should take care of her. But since Haymo has resigned as monastery huntsman, he cannot return to the monastery in that role. Instead, he is to become a gamekeeper. Since the requirement for the position is that he be married, Haymo and Gittli are finally united.