Summary: Feature film traces episodes in the life of a German fighter ace, bearer of the Pour Le Mérite, from the heroic victories of the First World War through to the political and social degradation of the Weimar period, until his return from self-imposed exile to join the Luftwaffe reconstituted by the new Germany.
Description: Film begins with the exploits of a German fighter squadron on the Western Front in the last months of the First World War, off-duty in the mess and defeating French and British pilots in aerial combat. Then comes the end of the war, revolution at home, the Kaiser is in Holland. The squadron will not surrender their planes (Fokker Dr I triplanes), they fly them to Darmstadt. Two of the planes land at Mannheim where they are attacked by a Communist mob, but the Squadron Leader arrives in time. They all assemble at Darmstadt and there decide to burn their planes. The Squadron Leader tries to build a new existence in the post-war Germany, in the midst of all the misery and disgrace, the black marketeers and war profiteers. He has no success as a businessman, he is too much of an Officer. One of his former Squadron invites him down to a farm he has started in Southern Germany. In an old barn there he sees his own plane which had been saved by his friend from destruction. The local Communists attack them and this time the plane really goes up in flames. The Squadron Leader is put in prison, his wife dies. When he is released, he goes abroad as a Civil Pilot, he has had enough of Weimar Germany. Then comes 1933 and finally the rebuilding of the German Luftwaffe and the Squadron Leader returns home at last to take up his proper place in the New Reich.
