In 1945 Vienna, an American doctor marries an Austrian girl, who later disappears in the Soviet Control Zone during a visit there, forcing everyone to presume her dead.

Dr. Michael Parker (Rock Hudson) is a prominent surgeon, who unexpectedly runs into his German-born wife Lisa (Cornell Borchers), who he thought was dead. Victor (George Sanders), an artist (and his "dead" wife's now boyfriend), berate Dr. Parker for killing her. This story is told in flashback to Austria during World War II as we learn how Dr. Parker met and married his wife, and the one mistake which may have cost him his family.—hiphats