Die blauen Schwerter (1949)

Around the year 1700, the Greek monk Laskari travels to Berlin, the residence of the Prussian Elector Frederick III. He claims to know how to make gold. The Elector is interested, in order to fund his luxurious desires. The apothecary’s apprentice Johann Friedrich Böttger becomes the goldmaker’s enthusiastic assistant. However, he has to realize that Laskari is a fraud. Böttger flees from the Elector and the threat of internment in Spandau Citadel to Saxony. There, he hopes for the help of Count von Tschirnhausen, who had spoken in Berlin about making thin porcelain, “white gold.” But the particularly extravagant Saxon ruler Augustus the Strong is interested in Böttger’s supposed ability to make gold and has him arrested. Böttger is taken to a fortress in Dresden, the Jungfern-Bastei, and supplied with everything supposedly needed to make gold. For seven years, the king waits for Böttger to make gold for him. Böttger knows that gold cannot be produced. Instead, he experiments with making white porcelain. Until then, this precious material has been made only in China. Böttger hopes the king will set him free if he makes this white gold available to him. To put pressure on Böttger, the king makes him attend the execution of another supposed goldmaker who has been exposed as a fraud. During the execution by the sword, Böttger’s gaze falls on two crossed swords on the courtroom wall. Although Böttger succeeds in solving the mystery of porcelain-making in 1709, the king does not grant him the freedom he had hoped for. The swords from the courtroom, which Böttger remembers, become the symbol of the new porcelain manufactory.