Wer die Heimat liebt (1957)

Willi, the son of influential large-scale farmer Hochegger, cannot come up with the payment due on his motorcycle and therefore plans to poach in attorney Bruckner’s hunting grounds and sell the game. The next day, Bruckner’s gamekeeper, Jakob Sonnleitner, discovers a roe deer caught in a wire snare. Sonnleitner lies in wait for the poacher. When the man comes to collect his catch, the gamekeeper confronts him. Young Hochegger dodges him and falls to his death. Old Hochegger denies that his son was poaching and turns the village against the gamekeeper. Since he has been feuding with him for a long time, he presents Willi’s accident as an act of revenge by Sonnleitner. It comes at just the right time that Prandtner, a young professional gamekeeper from the village, has just returned to his hometown. Hochegger successfully appeals to the villagers’ local patriotism. As a result, Sonnleitner is transferred to a new hunting district on Lake Neusiedl, and Prandtner takes his place. Sonnleitner’s family, however, remains in their longtime gamekeeper’s house. The old gamekeeper’s fear that life on the plains might be difficult for him as a mountain man proves unfounded. Prandtner, Bruckner’s new employee, is attracted to his predecessor’s daughter. But she rejects him, blaming him for her father’s disciplinary transfer. It is not long before Prandtner sees through Hochegger’s dirty scheme. Now he does everything he can to prove his innocence to Evi. The motorcycle dealer demands that old Hochegger pay the debt that is still outstanding. Since Hochegger cannot raise the sum, he offers the dealer the chance to hunt a magnificent stag in “his” hunting grounds as payment for the purchase price. Prandtner learns of the plot and pretends to go along with it. He asks Evi to come to the hunting grounds. She thinks it is just another come-on and refuses. But when she hears shots from the high forest, she hurries up there. She sees Lenz, the farmer’s younger son, gralloching the stag shot by the motorcycle dealer and hiding its antlers. Prandtner drives into town and reports the incident to Dr. Bruckner. He had only tolerated the poaching in order to expose Hochegger and thereby prove Jakob Sonnleitner’s innocence. The owner of the hunting grounds has his old gamekeeper recalled from Burgenland. Relieved, the latter returns to the mountain village.