German-born entrepreneur August Habermann lives and works in a village in the Sudetenland in the early 1930s. He runs a large mill and sawmill that has belonged to his family for generations and considers his German and Czech employees to be the same. He marries Jana, a Czech woman, and has a daughter with her shortly before the Sudetenland is occupied by the Wehrmacht. While most resident Germans rejoice at the coming to power of Hitler's army and SS-Sturmbannführer Koslowski, resentment spreads among the Czechs. After the assassination of two German soldiers, Habermann must choose for Koslowski originally 20, later 10 of his Czech workers to be shot in retaliation. In addition, Jana and their daughter are deported to a concentration camp.
Later, when the Red Army arrives, many Germans flee, but Habermann stays for the sake of his family business and is eventually tortured by an angry Czech mob until he dies. His wife Jana manages to escape the concentration camp with their daughter, but is driven out of their original home village again as the wife of a German.