Hans Otto Gauglitz

The young farmer Hinnerk has managed to make something of his estate thanks to the help of his servant Hannes; only his household budget is a mess. One day, Hinnerk notices a pretty young girl at the rail station and immediately recognizes that it’s his childhood friend, Ilske Roehling. But when he makes a play for her, she tells him to take a long walk off a very short pier. At a dance party at the Bakenhus Inn, he sees her again and manages to get into a fight with the innkeeper. Worse still, he kidnaps Ilske in his car; takes her to his farm; and tries to force her to consent to marriage.

The year is 1760: it is the time of the Seven Years' War and the advancing Russian army has taken captive 100 underage Prussian cadets. The kids are mishandled by the raping and pillaging Russians, but with the help of a Rittmeister now in the service of the Tsar, they succeed in getting away. They hole up in a deserted fort and eventually sally forward to take back their military academy from the bloodthirsty, pillaging Cossacks.