Richard Häußler was – along with Hans Heinz König – the most important auteur of smaller, more off-beat Heimatfilme. With Die Martinsklause he demonstrated with vigour and imagination all that could be done with a novel by Ludwig Ganghofer, a writer of dubious artistic merits and questionable politics, yet extraordinary public appeal, whose works had been adapted into movies since the silent era. While novels such as Der Jäger von Fall. Eine Erzählung aus dem bayerischen Hochlande (1883), Schloß Hubertus (1895) or Das Schweigen im Walde (1899) were adapted time and again, Die Martinsklause served solely as the source for this one film, possibly because it is set in the Middle Ages.
Parts of the Berchtesgaden region then belonged to the order of St. Augustine and were administrated by a man called Waze. He is a corrupt bastard, said to be betraying not only the monks but also the regent of Salzburg, who should receive the taxes Waze collects in the order’s name. To investigate these rumours, a cleric called Eberwein heads for the realm under Waze’s control… It takes some serious peasant unrest as well as a sign from God to end Waze’s reign of terror and reinstate Christian calm and dignity.
The film’s pious mindset was actually part of its marketing strategy, with the trailer promising “high Christian ethics”. God sold film tickets back then. More interesting from a modern perspective is the way Häußler introduces touches of noir and even hints of Gothic into the film’s heritage setting, a mode he would continue to explore with the postwar-set neurotic crime melodrama Das Dorf unterm Himmel (1953), which also starred the fabulous Gisela Fackeldey.

Olaf Möller