Jaider, der einsame Jäger (1971)

Franco-Prussian War, 1870–71. The hunter Jaider returns from the front to his Bavarian homeland. There, like so many men of his generation, he finds no work and is therefore driven by necessity to become a poacher in order to survive. His strictly forbidden activity proves so successful that he soon leads a gang of his own, five men strong, relentlessly pursued by Bavarian soldiers and state-authorized hunters. The manhunt for Jaider and his men soon takes on a fanatical character. Above all, the hunter Baptist Meyer becomes Jaider’s personal nemesis. Meyer repeatedly tries to trap him. When Jaider’s partner Agnes and then his brother lose their lives in these attempts, Jaider strikes back mercilessly. Armed with his (very modern for the time) repeating rifle, a gift from his comrades, he goes to the village where Meyer and his men are already waiting for the rebel and poacher. In a showdown—though one less melodramatic than those in comparable American or Italian Westerns—Jaider finally manages to defeat his adversary, Meyer.