Verboten! 1959

Near the end of World War II in Europe, American Sergeant David Brent loses two men and is wounded while pursuing a sniper in an unnamed German city. He collapses before a young German woman, Helga Schiller (Susan Cummings). She tends his wound and protects him from her bitter younger brother, Franz Schiller (Harold Daye). When the Waffen-SS sets up an artillery observation post in Helga’s building, she hides Brent to prove she is not a Nazi. After the city falls to American forces, Brent is sent to a hospital.

After Germany surrenders, Brent returns to the city and marries Helga, despite warnings from his commanding officer that American soldiers should not fraternize with German women. He resigns from the Army and takes a civilian job administering food distribution in the Food Office of the Military Government. The marriage is a fragile arrangement built on trust amid a ruined country, and Helga’s quiet act of defiance becomes a focal point for the community’s complicated dynamics.

One day, Helga spots Bruno Eckart (Tom Pittman), a returned German soldier she knows, and she gently pushes him toward a legitimate path—helping him get one of the scarce good jobs as a policeman by vouching for him. Bruno, in fact, is a member of Werwolf, a Nazi underground group aiming to undermine the postwar order with sabotage and surprise attacks. He uses his position to infiltrate other Werwolf members into the government and becomes their leader, while Helga’s brother Franz also joins the shadow organization. The tension between duty and loyalty deepens as the network quietly expands its reach.

When a food shipment is hijacked by Werwolf, civilians blame the Americans, and Brent is fired after he foolishly attacks the movement’s spokesman and is pummeled by the mob. Bruno seizes the moment to corral Brent against Helga, insinuating that she married him only for the food and shelter he could provide. Brent confronts Helga, and she admits the truth of the arrangement at the outset but insists she eventually fell in love with him; he does not believe her and walks away, leaving their fragile alliance in doubt.

Franz’s conscience begins to bother him after he witnesses a brutal incident at Bruno’s Werwolf headquarters, housed in a railroad boxcar. A Werwolf member protests the theft of medicine intended for the German people, and Bruno stab- bers him to death. Franz experiences a nightmare about the murder, and Helga discovers that Franz is part of Werwolf. Determined to show him the error of his ways, she takes him to the first session of the Nuremberg Trials. Horrified by what he learns, Franz reveals what he knows, enabling American authorities to crush the Werwolf operation in the area. Upon learning what Helga did, Brent recon- ciles with her.

Franz’s risky disclosures set in motion a crackdown that helps bring Werwolf networks out into the open, and the couple’s earlier misgivings give way to a renewed commitment. Franz then goes to the boxcar to retrieve an invaluable list of Werwolf members, but Bruno catches him in the act. A struggle ensues, and Franz manages to knock Bruno unconscious, yet is trapped inside when the boxcar catches fire. Brent rushes in and rescues his brother-in-law, a moment that seals their renewed bond and signals the beginning of the end for the hidden network that had fed fear into the city.