Der Mädchenkrieg (1977)

Prague, in the 1930s. While the Nazi barbarism of Adolf Hitler is spreading ever further in neighboring Germany, life in the Czechoslovak capital seems like a long, placid river. The threats seem distant, and the bourgeoisie enjoys peace and prosperity. In this refined setting, the three pretty daughters of the German businessman Dr. Sellmann grow up. In 1936, he left his hometown of Dessau with them and accepted a position as director of the Bohemian Landesbank in Prague. Christine, Sophie, and Katharina have very different personalities. At first, their everyday lives are shaped less by the political upheavals in Central Europe than by the small personal joys and worries of daily life—love, desire, and sorrow. Over the next ten years, until shortly after the end of the war in 1945, their lives are increasingly shaped by major turning points, in which three men also play central roles: a savvy communist who will fight the Nazis underground during the occupation, a sensitive, dreamy artist, and a very wealthy businessman and womanizer. From 1939 onward, private events become intertwined with high politics. While Katharina goes underground during the war with her communist lover to fight the occupiers, and Christine marries the Czech factory owner Jan Amery but collaborates with the German occupying forces after the marriage fails, Sophie begins studying singing. Meanwhile, she secretly adores her brother-in-law Jan, who remains off-limits as long as he is married to her sister Christine. Sophie, in turn, has a great admirer in a somewhat dreamy musician, though she seems little interested in him. To escape this tangle of love, Sophie decides to leave worldly life behind and enter a convent.