The wealthy plantation owner Pinaud is brutally murdered in Ceylon. His attractive German wife Anne is suspected of the crime and arrested by Inspector Cerdan. He is ordered to take her to Colombo. But the plane on the way there gets caught in a heavy storm and crashes shortly afterwards. Anne Pinaud and Cerdan are the only survivors of the crew and save themselves on a desert island. There they come across Werner Becker, who has been shipwrecked with his yacht and is also stranded here. While Cerdan continues to believe Anne is guilty of the crime, Werner believes she is innocent. Soon the tension between the two men builds up and they become rivals for Anne's favor.
Two divers find a treasure map, which apparently points to a sunken treasure below the ocean. They hire a professional to help them get the gold but this guy turns out to have a few secrets of his own.
The film focuses on life in a World War II German penal battalion camp somewhere in Russia. The convicts include a heroic doctor unjustly convicted of avoiding military service, an officer who retreated against orders, and common criminals. It shows their life in the camp, clearing mines, living in trenches on the front line.
Dr. Fritz Böhler is a prisoner of war doctor in the Soviet POW camp 5110/47 near Stalingrad. Despite the harshest conditions, he tries to help his fellow prisoners with the simplest means. But when his assistant Dr. Schultheiss falls in love with the Russian doctor Alexandra Kasalinskaja, Schultheiss not only endangers his own life - because Alexandra is the lover of First Lieutenant Markow.