Vertauschtes Leben (1961)

Brigitte “Biggi” Bertram works as secretary to her father, the renowned pianist Professor Alexander Bertram. Father and daughter get along wonderfully, but unlike her father, Biggi is rather unmusical. One night, during an argument with her boyfriend Nikolaus “Nicky” Dahlem on the outskirts of Munich, Biggi is riding a moped when she collides with a truck and is seriously injured. At the hospital, an emergency operation is prepared. Her parents rush to her side, but neither her father’s nor her mother’s blood type is compatible with Biggi’s. It turns out that they cannot be her parents. Mrs. Bertram remembers that in 1943, shortly after giving birth, she hurried with her hospital roommate at the time, Mrs. Lindner, to the air-raid shelter because of an air raid on Munich, taking both their babies with them. In all the confusion, the babies must have been switched. Maria Bertram is determined to meet her biological daughter. At the hospital where she gave birth, she obtains Mrs. Lindner’s old address, which is still current, and goes to Munich. At that address she finds a knitwear shop, where a young saleswoman, Katharina Lindner, works. Katharina is Maria Bertram’s biological daughter. Delighted, Maria watches the young woman as she buys a top for Brigitte, but she does not tell Katharina the real reason for her visit. Back home, Maria tells her husband that she visited his biological daughter and that the girl looks very much like him. Brigitte joins them, having been quite worried because she suspected her parents had argued, and is now glad that they have apparently made up. Soon Professor Bertram can no longer stand it either, and he visits his biological daughter at the knitwear shop. He speaks with her briefly and learns that she is taking violin lessons at the conservatory. So Katharina has inherited his musical talent. The whole affair gathers momentum when both Bertram and Mrs. Lindner receive a letter from the district court: after Biggi’s accident, the doctor had duly informed the authorities that Brigitte Bertram’s parents could not be her biological parents. Bertram goes to see Mrs. Lindner, and the two discuss what they should do from then on. Mrs. Lindner is distraught, fearing that the authorities will take away the daughter she loves so dearly. Then Katharina, who has learned about the court’s letter from her mother, visits the completely unsuspecting Brigitte and tells her about the babies being switched back in 1943. Brigitte is utterly taken aback and is practically in shock. She now wants to leave her family home. The reason is that, deep down, she has always felt more for her father than a daughter should feel for her own father. Now that no blood ties stand in her way, she sees a great danger to the peace of the household and to her parents’ marriage. As they flee their homes, the two daughters meet on a train, and it becomes clear that Katharina has far fewer problems with the situation than Biggi. Brigitte and her biological mother finally meet, but when Brigitte learns that her parents are also about to join them, she immediately runs off and goes into hiding. However, through his buddy Otto, Nicky finds out that she is in Bremen. Biggi and Nicky have not seen each other for two months. Katharina, who now bears the name “Brigitte Bertram” by court order, marries her boyfriend Paul in a village church in Upper Bavaria, with her adoptive mother and both of her biological parents present. The original Brigitte, who now goes by “Katharina Lindner” on her new papers, plans to emigrate to the United States by ship from Bremen. She has therefore taken a job as a secretary aboard a ship. Professor Bertram learns about this from Nicky at the wedding celebration for the new “Brigitte,” and rushes to Bremen with Nicky. He manages to visit her aboard the ship at the last moment, to Brigitte—now Katharina’s—great delight. They say goodbye, and Brigitte tells her father she probably will not return. She also has a brief farewell with Nicky, who asks her to stay. When she says she cannot, he suggests—not entirely wrongly—that she must be in love with another man. Then, to the strains of “Muss i denn, muss i denn zum Städtele hinaus,” the ship sets off, leaving the two men alone on the quay. In the final scene, Brigitte is seen waving back from the rail with a tear in her eye as the ship sails out to sea.