Es kommt ein Tag (1950)

Near the French town of St. Godard, in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War, German Corporal Friedrich Mombour shoots a young French lieutenant. He takes a small handwritten sheet of music lying beside the dead man. On the orders of his superiors, Mombour is to find quarters for his regiment in St. Godard. He spontaneously enters a house whose residents, like him, bear the surname “Mombour.” Inside, he meets the elderly lady of the house, who tells him that members of her family once left France and emigrated to Germany because they were persecuted for their faith. Friedrich is astonished to learn that he is therefore descended from Huguenots. Madame Mombour tells Friedrich about her son Gaston, who is a soldier like him. She hopes to see him again. The old lady is very ill, and her daughter Madeleine lovingly cares for her. Friedrich and the young woman take a liking to each other immediately, and soon they share an intimate relationship. One evening, when Madeleine plays a short composition by her brother, Friedrich realizes in horror that it is the song written on the sheet of music he found beside the Frenchman he shot. Desperate, he leaves the house and wanders aimlessly. Madeleine goes looking for Friedrich and also enters Gaston’s room, where she finds her brother’s handwritten sheet music. She realizes that she is in love with her brother’s murderer. When Friedrich returns to the house many hours later, Madame Mombour is at death’s door. The thought of her son keeps her from finding peace, so Madeleine implores Friedrich to grant her mother’s final wish: Friedrich appears at Madame Mombour’s bedside in Gaston’s uniform. Now believing that she sees her son, safe and well, before her, she dies peacefully. Shortly afterward, the war takes an unexpected turn: the French launch a counterattack against the Germans, and, alerted by gunfire, Friedrich rushes blindly out of the house, forgetting that he is wearing Gaston’s uniform. A bullet fired by a German soldier strikes him on the threshold. Friedrich dies in Madeleine’s arms after they have affirmed their love for each other.