A Time to Love and a Time to Die

Ernst Graeber returns from a two-year furlough amid a hasty Russian retreat and finds his family home bombed and his parents missing. He goes to the family doctor for news, and Elizabeth tells him her father has been sent to a concentration camp for an unwise remark.

Oscar Binding, Ernst's old school friend and local head of the Nazi Party, offers him accommodation, food, drink, and women. Ernst, however, prefers to stay with fellow soldiers billeted in a hospital and to stay close to Elizabeth.

With help from another soldier, Ernst takes Elizabeth to a restaurant secretly open despite the wartime ban on luxuries. That night, the restaurant is destroyed during a bombing.

The two, now alone in a ruined social world, decide on an immediate marriage. They commit to each other despite the chaos surrounding them, clinging to a future together.

Elizabeth's family home is flattened by bombs. They take refuge in a ruined church, seeking shelter amid the ongoing bombing.

Elizabeth is summoned to Gestapo headquarters, and Ernst accompanies her as her husband. He is given her father's ashes and secretly buries them in the churchyard.

Ernst visits Professor Pohlmann, meets Joseph, a Jew on the run hidden by Pohlmann, and hears that there is no excuse for the Wehrmacht's crimes. Pohlmann urges moral accountability for the war.

Pohlmann distracts the police to help Joseph escape and is arrested for his defiance. Ernst witnesses the arrest and is reminded of the cost of moral resistance.

Ernst asks for an extended leave to stay with Elizabeth, but his request is denied by the army. He remains on duty as the front line continues to press forward.

On their last night together, the city is bombed again. They choose to spend the night in their lodgings instead of taking shelter in a bomb shelter.

Returning to the front, Ernst encounters a fellow soldier who is an ardent Nazi about to shoot captured civilians. Ernst shoots the Nazi and tells the civilians to flee.

One of the fleeing civilians picks up the dead man's rifle and shoots Ernst dead. He dies before finishing reading a letter from Elizabeth stating she is expecting their child.