Mutter sein dagegen sehr! (1951)

Since becoming a widow, Florentine has felt rather lonely, despite having two reliable friends: her former guardian, Mr. Haas, whom she always calls “Häschen,” and her housekeeper, Johanna. Then, after visiting her childhood friend Charlotte, who runs an orphanage, Florentine gets an idea. With no suitable man in sight, she decides on the spot to adopt a child. She wants to take little Peter, but he refuses to leave the orphanage without his friend Monika. Then a little girl named Snow White also wins “Häschen’s” heart, and Florentine decides to adopt all three. This brings a major upheaval overnight and a great deal of work for the still-young woman. One day, Florentine meets the handsome architect Curt May, who—this is the stuffy, extremely conservative 1950s—is evidently a little shocked to learn that the unmarried woman he has fallen for already has three small children of her own. The two clash when she expects him to expand the living space by converting the attic into a children’s room, but he is unwilling to do so. They end up in court, and Florentine’s warm, maternal charm gradually softens Curt’s heart. As Florentine comes to mean more and more to him over the course of the story, he magnanimously offers to marry her despite her “stain” of being an unmarried mother—even as the children, Snow White, Peter, and Monika, who call Florentine “Auntie Mommy,” do everything they can to sabotage the prospective marriage. The little rascals fear that if she marries, there won’t be enough of her love left for them, or that they might even be sent back to the orphanage. The neighbor boy Willy, whose father is a successful boxer with a feared right hook, is also supposed to teach the unwanted intruder Curt a thing or two. Then a new danger looms: an outbreak of measles. Eventually, Curt, who has been trying hard to win the three little ones’ affection, learns the real reasons behind Florentine’s unusually large brood, and is ultimately moved by her evident generosity and the altruism behind it.