During WW2, a local partisan in a Nazi-occupied country blows-up a German army train. Apart from the damages, the Germans also lose three men. In accordance with their usual policies in occupied countries, the Germans take ten hostages for every dead German soldier. Therefore, the German company occupying the village where the sabotage occurred takes thirty male hostages from among the local villagers. Some hostages act with dignity and bravery, others are cowards and a few try to curry favor with the Germans in order to be spared. The German commander, Captain Langenau, orders the hostages to line-up in the village square and places his soldiers manning heavy machine-guns in front of the hostages. He announces that he will free all the hostages if the partisan responsible for the sabotage-act surrenders by four o'clock in the afternoon. The partisan responsible for the sabotage is Mirko. He has conscience problems about allowing 30 innocent hostages to be shot for a deed he committed