Arzt ohne Gewissen (1959)

Professor Dr. Lund (Ewald Balser), the famous heart specialist and a potential Nobel Prize winner, is striving to perform human heart transplants: he wants to uncover the last secret of heart surgery! His attempts to replace worn-out organs with more efficient ones are attracting the attention of the scientific community and the world press — a turning point in medical development seems to be emerging.

But what no one knows is this — his experiments go far beyond those conducted on lower animals and mammals: in a remote castle whose basement houses a modern clinic, he is also experimenting on humans — on suicide candidates, living corpses who are brought to the castle against their will and by illegal means. Since their lives are considered meaningless anyway, their use in the name of progress and science seems justified to the professor, who is obsessed with his idea. He has already succeeded in transplanting a heart into an Italian man who suffered from an inoperable aneurysm, but the patient can only be kept alive through continuous medication.

When internationally renowned singer Harriet Owen (Cornell Borchers), who suffers from aortic stenosis that cannot be cured by known methods, seeks a cure from Lund, he has the prostitute Birke Sawatzki (Karin Baal) — just discharged from the university clinic after being saved from a third suicide attempt — kidnapped and brought to his castle to transplant her heart into the singer. Lund’s previous accomplice in these daring surgeries was former Wehrmacht doctor Dr. Stein (Wolfgang Kieling). However, since Stein has become a physical and mental wreck who relies on morphine to function, Lund tries to recruit his talented former assistant Dr. Westorp (Wolfgang Preiss) for this operation, along with the young doctor Marianne Cordt (Barbara Rütting), who had supported Lund up until now, unaware of the full truth.

At first, Westorp is fascinated by Lund’s brilliant research and his struggle to find new paths for the benefit of suffering humanity. But he refuses to participate once he discovers at the castle that Sawatzki is not, as he had been led to believe, dead — she has merely been placed in a death-like sleep by Stein so that the heart transplant can be performed with a living heart. Westorp remembers the highest principle of medical ethics — to preserve life under all circumstances — and turns against Lund.

Meanwhile, the Italian man manages to escape from the hidden clinic in the castle, but dies on the way, deprived of the life-saving medication. The police investigate the death, and the trail leads to the castle. In the garage there, they also find the ambulance in which Sawatzki — whose mysterious disappearance is also under police investigation — was abducted from the university clinic. Dr. Stein manages to flee, but dies during his escape. Lund evades arrest by taking poison, though not before fully exonerating Westorp and Marianne. With Lund’s suicide — his brilliance having descended into madness — there is no one left to hold accountable, and the investigation is closed.

Lund is buried with full honors as a great researcher and scientist. Sawatzki, who was saved by Westorp and given back her now meaningful life, attends the funeral — while Harriet Owen, doomed to a slow death, continues her search for a doctor who can cure her inoperable heart.