Die Heilige und ihr Narr (1928)

The young, though often sickly, Princess Rosemarie von Brauneck has lost one parent. She grows up in extremely wealthy circumstances, but they give her little warmth inside. Her father is the lord of Brauneck Castle, but has scarcely any time for the young girl. His new wife proves to be an eccentric, domineering, delusional, proverbial wicked stepmother who loathes the child and does not want one of her own because, as she says, the little creature would only tie her to the boring castle life in the wilderness. Even Christmas is not really celebrated as a family. In her loneliness, little Rosemarie clings to the handsome Harro, Count von Torstein, a kind and charming but rather impoverished nobleman who earns a meager living as a painter. When Rosemarie runs away from home on December 24 to look for the Christ Child, it is Count Harro who finds her and saves her from freezing to death. A deep friendship grows between them and soon blossoms into love. When the unwanted child of the new princess proves unviable after a premature birth that she herself caused, the wicked woman blames innocent Rosemarie. To appease his wife, who has him under her thumb, the prince promptly throws his own flesh and blood out of the castle. Now begins Rosemarie von Brauneck’s steady decline. Alone and impoverished, she lives in the town of Bordighera, apparently shamefully abandoned by her friend Harro. In any case, her countless letters to him go unanswered. The wicked old woman at the castle is behind that, too: the princess has intercepted Harro’s replies, so that, because of this treachery, Rosemarie has to believe that her Harro no longer loves her. Only later, when Rosemarie is already seriously ill, does her father learn of his second wife’s machinations and begin to care for Rosemarie. Harro is also told of these revelations, and he immediately shows that he is willing to marry Rosemarie. The princess is furious that the prince has given his approval for the marriage, since she herself had set her sights on the handsome count with adulterous intentions. In a final fit of rage, her hatred of Rosemarie erupts so violently that the terrible stepmother even shoots at the young woman. Little by little, Rosemarie, so cruelly battered by fate, begins to recover and can now marry her Harro. Princess Brauneck, however, is sent to a mental hospital because of her delusional behavior.