In the 1930s, after flunking out of college, a young American man travels to Vienna where he meets a Jewish girl living on the floor below him. He returns home a few months later, but when the Nazis invade Vienna he can't help but think of the girl he once knew.

After six years of bloody civil war, the relationship between an army commander and her quartermaster wife has foundered and it’s unclear whether their love will last through the final battle.