Oberarzt Dr. Solm (1955)

Dr. Karl Solm is a capable and ambitious senior physician at Professor Möllenhauer’s private clinic. His specialty is brain surgery, and he is particularly committed to leukotomy, a procedure that is controversial among medical professionals. One of his adversaries is the psychiatrist Professor Berding, whose son suffers from a mental illness caused by an organic condition. While the two professors are attending a medical congress in America, Elisabeth Berding asks Dr. Solm to operate on her son. She can no longer bear to watch the boy suffer. She also presents a consent form bearing her husband’s signature. Claudia, Möllenhauer’s daughter, who is acting for her father in running the clinic, doubts that the signature is genuine. As a precaution, she sends Professor Berding a telegram asking him to confirm his authorization for the operation. The answer comes promptly: No! But Solm has already operated. After returning home, Berding succeeds in making Solm lose all joy in his work at the hospital. Möllenhauer, too, no longer stands by his senior physician. Solm eventually can no longer bear to stay at the clinic and resigns. He takes over a rural medical practice in a village in the Bavarian Alps. The longer he works there, the more he changes from the once-celebrated fashionable doctor into a simple, modest helper. The young nurse Regine is a great help to him. She senses that he is carrying a troubling secret. In secret, she investigates his past so that she can stand by him when the decisive moment comes. One day, Angelika Berding unexpectedly turns up in the mountain village and wants to bring the doctor back. She has always loved him and now hopes that their relationship, which had died out, can be rekindled. Angelika’s brother Benvenuto has steadily recovered since Solm’s operation and is now completely well. But Solm has lost interest in his adversary’s daughter. He now knows that his true love belongs only to Regine. Finally, Solm returns to the city and his old clinic, a changed doctor and man, accompanied by Regine.