Writing
During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), five International Brigade soldiers of different nationalities are given a crucial assignment as their commander lies dying: they are to smuggle top-secret information across enemy lines.
Spain 1936: Despite the victory of the Popular Front, nothing has changed for the peasants; the grandees continue to oppress them. The poor peasant son Pablo fights back and encourages the others to demand their rights. The grandees flee. Students from Madrid arrive and help the rural population to democratize. Pablo falls in love with Magdalena and learns to read and write from her. When Franco begins his bloody attack on the young republic, they defend the village together. When Magdalena dies in a bombing raid by German planes, Pablo begins to hate the Germans. However, fighting together with the International Brigades, he realizes that there are other Germans too, and that they share a common enemy.
The Ruhr area in November of 1918. 13-year old Achim Wolters and his friends get their hands on some potatoes on the market. They want to surprise Achim′s father, who works on a mine sweeper boat, with a decent meal. But Achim′s father does not show up – an informer at the train station has betrayed him for his left-wing beliefs and has turned him over to the police. The priest tells Achim the sad news and advises him to pray for the release of his father. But when carpenter Stelzebein stresses that everybody has to take actions for himself, the devout boy at first does not believe in Stelzebein′s words. But then Achim witnesses in the prison how brutally the imperial police treat his father and the other inmates. Together with his loyal friends, Achim takes Stelzebein′s side. When the revolution starts, they stand together on the barricades.
At the beginning of the Second World War, Czech music student Honsik comes to Germany from Prague to join a "foreign worker company". After rescuing a boy from the rubble of a bombed-out house, he himself is seriously injured and taken to a hospital in Stralsund. There he is regarded as a second-class citizen and the Germans are preferred to him. Nurse Käthe stands up for him, cares for him and defies all prohibitions. A love affair is kindled between the two, but it is not under a good star. Honsik tries to flee to his homeland with his comrades and Käthe supports him. At the last moment, however, Honsik realizes that his love for Käthe is stronger than his homesickness and makes his way back. Once back home, he can only watch as Käthe is arrested by the Gestapo. With the help of a resistance fighter, the young man from Prague manages to escape after all.
Magdalena and Michael have loved each other since they were children. But when the Nazis come to power, Michael rebels against the regime and is sentenced to fifteen years in a concentration camp. Magdalena, meanwhile, goes underground with the help of a friend and later immigrates to the Soviet Union. Michael, who has joined the Red Army, discovers on the way to Moscow that Magdalena is staying there. But when his plane lands, she is already on her way back to Germany. Michael hopes that one day, he and Magdalena will be reunited.
Spain in the 1930s. The film tells of the fight of international troops against General Franco's army. It tells of the fate of three brigadists, the American Gary, the German Hans and the Englishman Joe, who are taken prisoner by Franco's army. Their attitude in this difficult situation is a living example of international solidarity and creates a memorial.
