Rote Rosen, rote Lippen, roter Wein (1953)

Around 1944, art dealer Herbert Thormann and his secretary, Nora Krüger, live at Waldenberg Castle, run by Countess Waldenberg. Thormann actually lives and works in Italy, where he intends to return after the war—with Nora as his wife. She is surprised by his proposal, especially since she has fallen in love with Captain Hans Westhoff, who is on leave from the front for a few days, and spends with him what little time he can stay. When news later comes that Westhoff has been killed in Italy, Nora is deeply shaken. After the war, she returns to Munich and completes her art history studies, which the war had interrupted. She is the only one in her year to get a job straight away: Herbert asks her to help him with his work in Italy, and after some hesitation Nora accepts. Hans Westhoff is also in Italy. He has deserted along with his friend Alfred and is living in the wilderness, where Alfred brings him food. Hans intends to make his way to Germany. GIs give him a ride for part of the way, but identify him as a German. Shortly afterward, he gets caught up in a shootout with Italian looters, in which a GI is killed. Hans manages to escape, but is now wanted by the police as the supposed leader of the looters. The actual leader, a Pole, gets him a forged passport under the name “Braun,” which is meant to help him escape to Germany. Then Hans sees Nora in a bar with Herbert Thormann and learns from Alfred’s girlfriend, Bianca, that Nora is going to marry Herbert. So he does not reveal himself to Nora and plans his escape. What he does not know is that the Pole intends to have him murdered as a witness to the attack on the GIs as soon as he shows up at the harbor. Two other participants in the attack, meanwhile, want to have the now all-powerful Pole arrested and report the planned murder to the police. In the meantime, Nora has had time to mourn Hans. Although she does not love Herbert, she accepts a second proposal of marriage from him. A short time later, she happens to learn that Alfred is in town. He takes her to a bar to see Hans, and the two spend the night together. Meanwhile, the police have carried out a raid at the harbor, intending to arrest both Hans and the Pole. When the police arrive at the bar, Hans manages to escape by the skin of his teeth. The next morning, Nora asks Herbert to get a forged passport from his friend, the police prefect, for a former soldier named Braun who wants to go to Germany but has no papers. The police prefect, in turn, tells Herbert that Braun is actually Hans, who is wanted by the police for the murder of a GI, and that the police checked Nora the previous night at a disreputable bar, where she apparently was with a man. Back at the villa, Herbert confronts Nora. She tells him everything, but insists that Hans is innocent. Herbert promises to help Hans if Nora will then banish him from her life. Forced to, Nora agrees and pretends to Hans that she is leaving him for Herbert. Herbert, meanwhile, has learned from the prefect that Hans is innocent, but conceals this from Nora and enables Hans to escape to Germany with a forged passport. The next morning, Herbert finds Nora lifeless. She had tried to commit suicide, but can be saved. Only now does Herbert realize how deeply Nora loves Hans, and he lets her go. She returns to Waldenberg, where she happily falls into Hans’s arms.