Frauen, die sich opfern (1916)

Lisbeth Wollnau, the daughter of a company’s authorized commercial signatory, is secretly engaged to the young nobleman Egon von Holberg. After he turns out to be a cad who has had an affair with a dancer, Lisbeth breaks off the engagement and gives in to the insistence of Robert Erle, a considerably older and wealthy merchant, agreeing to become his wife. The elderly Erle has an adult son, Georg, from his first marriage, who gives him little joy because he wants to marry an actress named Lisa Rothe, a match entirely against his father’s wishes. When Georg urgently needs money for a new job, he first turns to his father, who refuses his request for financial help, just as Georg’s friend Egon does. Holberg knows all too well that he will probably never see again the money he lent Georg. It turns out that Holberg himself is apparently rather short of money, since he has approached his former fiancée, Lisbeth, for financial help. While Georg waits in the next room, Lisbeth arrives and tells Egon that she considers all the ties she ever had to him severed. Then she leaves. When a shot rings out, Egon’s housekeeper sees Georg Erle rushing out of the room. Georg is immediately seen as Egon’s murderer and is arrested shortly afterward. The following day, Lisbeth learns of the arrest and of a police notice seeking an unidentified woman—herself—who is said to have met with the dead man shortly before. Carrying the letter in which Holberg had asked her to meet him about the loan he had requested, Lisbeth hurries to Lisa Rothe, now Lisa Erle, to give it to her and thereby clear her stepson Georg, Lisa’s husband. To keep Lisbeth from being implicated, Lisa decides—since their first names are somewhat alike—to tell the police that Egon’s letter of request had been addressed to her, Lisa Erle. Georg’s defense attorney then argues in court that Georg is innocent and constructs the following account of events: Egon had summoned Lisa by letter and had not received the loan he wanted. Georg, who had fallen asleep in the next room, was startled awake by the shot. Egon von Holberg had shot himself because Lisa would not give him the loan he wanted. Awakened by the revolver shot, Georg Erle had panicked and fled the room and the house. In a fit of shock and confusion, he had picked up the revolver lying on the floor and taken it with him. The court in fact accepts this far-fetched version put forward by the defense and acquits Georg Erle. However, Georg’s self-sacrificing wife, Lisa, is told that proceedings might possibly be brought against her. The elderly Erle, convinced that this confirms his prejudices against Lisa, now demands that Georg divorce his wife immediately. Lisbeth cannot let this stand, so she goes to her husband to make clear that the letter had been addressed to her, not Lisa. The old man is utterly stunned: until then, he had not known that his present wife had once been the secret fiancée of the late Egon von Holberg. Georg, in turn, thanks his own wife profusely for having been willing to sacrifice herself for him so selflessly. Lisbeth, who blames herself for all the tragic events, seeks a silent-film-style death by drowning in a nearby pond.