A Hungarian soldier is taken prisoner by the Russians and sent to a Siberian prison camp. Meanwhile the years of loneliness are too much for his wife to bear.
Herr Werther, a new magistrate to the Grand Duchy of Walheim who is a violinist and poet, seems to have fate on his side as he meets and pursues a beautiful local woman, Charlotte.
The mangiest pup at Pete's Pooch Palace catches the Captain's eye. He takes it home, but Mama is less than thrilled; she forbids it to stay in the house.
The underage Rosemarie is still too young to run her inherited farm by herself; but she's more than aware that her foster father and the farm's administrator, the farmer Schlieker, is constantly skimming from the farm's finances to line his own pocket.