AllMovie

In this German tragedy, a generally humane bureaucrat ruins his life by too rigorously enforcing the rules concerning honest weight. Taking place in the years just prior to World War I, the film is set in a colorful village in Galicia, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Because of his efforts to enforce strict weights and measures, our bureaucrat has become the most-hated man in his region. His wife cuckolds him and has a child by another man, his gypsy girlfriend abuses him mercilessly and he is hunted down by those he has mortally offended. He slowly comes to realize that almost everything people do is short-weighted in some way.