Mein Leopold (1913)

Master shoemaker Gottlieb Weigelt has made a great success of himself. He owns a large shop of his own and employs a foreman and twelve journeymen. His pride and joy is his son Leopold, a good-for-nothing who is barely managing to make a go of his legal clerkship, but excels above all at being absent and lazy. He is, however, very good at spending his father’s money. Leopold’s finances become so precarious after he meets a dancer who proves to be a very expensive pleasure that he soon feels compelled to forge his father’s signature to redeem the bills held by his moneylender. Old Weigelt does not realize how deeply his beloved son is sliding into danger. He even writes an angry letter to a judge because, in Weigelt’s eyes, the man fails to recognize Leopold’s true worth. Weigelt’s foreman, Starke, tries in vain to open the old man’s eyes, as does Klara Weigelt, who has always received less attention and love from her father than Leopold. She joins Starke, whom she loves, in his efforts. In anger, Weigelt throws Starke out of his business and disowns Klara. Leopold’s extravagances soon eat up all of his father’s wealth. Eventually, the family business is put up for auction, too. As soon as there is nothing left to get from the old man, Leopold disappears. For the first time, the father, who has now lost everything, feels his son’s behavior as a real blow. He has to put his life back in order and starts again from the bottom: as a humble cobbler in someone else’s workshop. The unscrupulous son has also hit rock bottom; in Hamburg, he joins a tramp and goes on the road with him. But through a stroke of good fortune, he and his companion find work in a machine factory. A change now comes over Leopold: he becomes diligent and reliable, works hard, and one day even rises to become a partner in the firm. Over the years, Weigelt and his daughter, who has since married Starke, have reconciled. Leopold, who knows nothing of his father’s decline because of his long absence, has recently made fruitless efforts to find out where he is. Father Weigelt and daughter Klara, too, believe Leopold is missing. It is only her husband, Starke, who discovers Leopold’s whereabouts and is able to arrange a reconciliation between father and son.