In occupied West Germany in 1960, four drunk American soldiers leave Florida Bar, where Town Without Pity is playing on the jukebox, and head toward a river that threads the countryside. On the riverbank, Fräulein Karin Steinhof, Christine Kaufmann, has a quarrel with her nineteen-year-old boyfriend, Frank Borgmann, Gerhart Lippert, as the water laps at the shore. She swims back to the starting point, lights a cigarette, and strips out of her wet bikini when she is confronted by Sergeant Chuck Snyder, Frank Sutton, and is gang-raped by Corporal Birdwell Scott, Richard Jaeckel, Private Joey Haines, Mal Sondock, and Corporal Jim Larkin, Robert Blake. Borgmann, hearing her screams, dives across the river to intervene but is knocked out by Snyder. After three of the men begin to retreat, the guilt-ridden Larkin lingers, covers Steinhof with his shirt, and finally flees with the others.
The four men are swiftly apprehended. To placate the outrage of the local population, Major General Stafford, Alan Gifford, orders that their court martial be held in public inside the town high school gymnasium. The prosecutor, Lieutenant Colonel Jerome Pakenham, E.G. Marshall, pushes for the death penalty. Major Steve Garrett, Kirk Douglas, is assigned to defend the accused. After interviewing his clients, Garrett pursues a plea for long sentences at hard labor, but Pakenham is confident he has a strong case. Garrett broadens his investigation, questions residents, and is followed by Inge Koerner, Barbara Rütting, a hostile German reporter who seems determined to sensationalize every angle of the trial.
At the outset of the proceedings, three of the men plead not guilty. Larkin tries to enter a guilty plea, but Garrett overrules him. The defense brings forward an army psychiatrist who had treated Larkin before the incident; the witness testifies that Larkin is impotent for psychological reasons. Larkin vehemently denies it and has to be forcibly removed from the courtroom. After the first day, Garrett pleads with Karin’s father, Karl Steinhof, Hans Nielsen, to withdraw her from the trial, warning that breaking her down on the stand could doom his clients, and advising the Steinhof family to leave town, though Karl refuses.
As lead defense, Garrett must show that Karin is not as innocent as she first appears, and that Karl Steinhof and Frank Borgmann are not entirely blameless either. He proceeds to erode their credibility by catching them in small lies. As Karin-testifies, she buckles under the pressure and collapses; her father withdraws her, ensuring the defendants cannot be executed. The quartet is convicted of rape, three receiving long terms at hard labor and Larkin a six-year sentence. The town’s anger shifts, and Karin finds herself alienated and scrutinized by those who once pitied her.
Karin’s fiancé, Borgmann, resists Garrett’s counsel while he is whipped by Borgmann’s anger, and Garrett urges him to take Karin away for good. The couple flees, but trouble follows: Karin’s mother coerces her son by forging a signature on a check to amass money, and the authorities close in. Karin and Borgmann attempt to escape, but Karin vanishes again as authorities close in. Later, Koerner informs Garrett that Karin has drowned herself in the river near the place where she was violated. The town’s judgment, its lack of pity, has left a lasting mark, underscored by the film’s closing lyric and the somber mood that remains after the verdict.
> It isn’t very pretty what a town without pity can do.
