Hinter Klostermauern (1928)

Young Paulus is expected to become a monk at the wish of his devout parents. Because he loves Käthe, the forester’s daughter, after careful consideration he decides to defy his parents’ wishes. His sister Grete faces the same problem: she, too, is supposed to enter a convent. But Grete has fallen in love with Franz, a carpenter’s apprentice. Her parents, however, insist that she become a nun. When she is close to breaking under the burden of this forced choice in life, Paulus intervenes: he promises to follow the path of a monk if they will spare Grete and not stand in the way of her happiness with Franz. Paulus is preparing to enter the monastery when, in despair and intending to take her own life, Grete throws herself into a nearby forest lake, once again hoping to spare her brother a life behind monastery walls. Grete is pulled from the water half dead and taken to the convent, where she is nursed back to health. And now it is the monks who, when they learn of the siblings’ ordeal, advise them to follow their own paths instead of always trying to please their parents.