Eine Handvoll Helden (1967)

The plot is essentially the same as that of the first film adaptation. The course of events also strongly recalls the story of the defense and fall of the former Alamo mission in Mexican Texas in 1836. After the devastating defeat at Jena against the French in 1806, Prussian Captain von Bruck is ordered to occupy Reinersdorf Mill as a rear guard, with the few surviving soldiers from his Jäger company. The mill lies on the only route through the marshy Saale lowlands. Bruck is to defend it until the last units have escaped across the Saale toward Gera. Since this mission cannot be carried out with so few soldiers, some of them wounded, Captain von Bruck demands reinforcements. The staff officer delivering the order gives Bruck his word of honor that he will provide them. Bruck gathers up other scattered soldiers: two hussars, two dragoons, and the gunner Kurtz, who has been arrested for looting and is shackled in handcuffs. The young Angelika joins the group; she has been searching the abandoned battlefield for her fallen fiancé. The captain orders the troops to move out. When they reach the mill, he declares it a combat zone, asks the miller and his family, along with Angelika, to get themselves and their belongings to safety before the fighting, and orders the soldiers to fortify the farmyard. Gunner Kurtz and the two dragoons secretly slip away and make their own way back to the battlefield, where French foraging parties have since arrived. They retrieve an abandoned cannon and bring it back to the mill as reinforcement. One of the dragoons dies while they are salvaging the cannon. Captain von Bruck then removes Gunner Kurtz’s shackles and promises to intercede on his behalf for leniency because of his bravery. Meanwhile, the staff officer brings up a small reserve force, but he and his men are killed in an attack by French cavalry. Angelika witnesses this after she has already left the farmyard with the miller’s family. She rushes back to the mill and asks Captain von Bruck to prevent further bloodshed and surrender in the face of the hopeless situation. French cavalrymen scouting the route through the marsh have by now discovered the mill farmstead and the soldiers entrenched there. Captain von Bruck now gives the soldiers the choice to leave the position if they would rather save their lives. The Jägers Papke, a tailor’s apprentice, and Hinnerk, a farmer’s son, give up and leave the group. Only Kurtz, one dragoon, two hussars, and three Jägers—Senior Jäger Rückert, a forester experienced in fighting poachers; Jäger Borgmann, a cunning student; and Fahnenjunker Olberg—remain at their post. French soldiers spot Hinnerk and Papke as they flee and shoot them. The French commander has by now learned from his cavalrymen about the mill and the Saale bridge beyond it. He orders his regiment to capture the position, advance to the bridge, and cut off the retreat of the fleeing Prussian army. The French first advance with infantry, then artillery, and finally grenadiers. As the defeated army crosses the last bridge over the Saale in the distance, the Prussian soldiers repel one attack after another under dramatic circumstances, but eventually succumb to the French superior numbers. When the French finally take the farmyard, they find Angelika as the sole survivor. Captain von Bruck and his soldiers have fallen, but by defending the mill they held the French back long enough for the Prussian troops to escape across the Saale.