Gottes Engel sind überall (1948)

Spring 1945. Allied soldiers have advanced deep into German territory. Josef “Joschi” Weidinger, a somewhat older Viennese man, was also conscripted into the Wehrmacht at the very last minute and became separated from his unit amid the chaos of the war’s final days in the North German Plain. Joschi longs to go home to Vienna, back to his roots. On his arduous and dangerous journey between enemy lines, the scattered soldier meets little Florian, who, like him, has become homeless. “Flori,” as the six-year-old is usually called, was separated from his mother—the widow of an Austrian engineer—during a low-level air raid as they fled the advancing enemy armies. Now, on his way home, he seeks Joschi’s company and protection. After all manner of adventures and dangers, the mismatched pair eventually make it safely to the Austrian capital, by then liberated, traveling through Upper and Lower Austria. Along the way, Joschi has grown very fond of little Flori, and since the boy appears to have no home or family, he is only too happy to take him in as his own child. But Flori’s mother has survived and naturally wants her son back. Joschi is reluctant to give him up, but when he sees how attached the boy is to his mother, he lets him go. Meanwhile, back home, a new happiness awaits Joschi too, in the form of a woman who has been waiting for him all her life.