The Mortal Storm - Plot

Plot

In 1933, Freya Roth (Sullavan) is a young German girl engaged to a Nazi party member (Young). When she realizes the true nature of his political views, she breaks the engagement and turns her attention to anti-Nazi Martin Breitner (Stewart). Her father is a professor, who does not abide by the attitude of the new regime towards scientific fact. His reluctance to conform to the racial theories that were favoured by the regime leads at first to a boycott of his classes and eventually to his capture. He is imprisoned and made to work. His wife is permitted a five minute visit in which the professor urges her to take Freya and her younger brother and leave the country. He dies soon after.

Later, trying to flee the Nazi regime, Freya and Martin attempt to ski across the border to safety in Austria. Freya is gunned down by the Nazis (under reluctant orders from her ex-fiance, who has tried to spare her, but has been ordered to track her down by his superiors). Martin, at her request, picks her up and skis into Austria so she can die in a free country. When her step-brothers are informed of her fate, one expresses dissatisfaction that Breitner was able to escape and persist in free-thinking. The second step brother responds with the words, 'thank God'. There is an ensuing scene in which the dialogue is replayed from earlier in the film when the family was still united.