Die Funkstreife Gottes (1968)

A serious plane crash at Vienna-Schwechat Airport leaves numerous people injured and dead. Chaplain Wolf, a crisis-response priest, is called to the scene to provide pastoral care to the victims. Among them is a well-dressed man known in criminal circles only as “the Major.” He is a big shot in the underworld. Wolf tends to the dying man and hears his confession. Then the “Major” dies. Some of the Major’s fellow gangsters get wind of what happened, above all the ice-cold Schramm, a major player with few scruples in the “Syndicate.” The crooks abduct Chaplain Wolf and take him to his nearby parish. They are determined to find out what the dying man told him. It is evidently about loot worth millions from a robbery. But Wolf invokes the seal of confession, which Schramm and his men, predictably, refuse to accept. And so a harsh interrogation begins, along with a painful ordeal, as the gangsters give the bound priest a thorough beating. Before long, Schramm’s fat gangster rival Felix also turns up, equally interested in the whereabouts of the loot. Wolf stands firm, while an insurance investigator has also become involved in the case. The situation grows more dramatic when Wolf’s younger brother Jürgen, through his own fault, gets into trouble and now also needs help from the priest, who is being held captive.