In February 1942, Abbé Henri Kremer, a priest from Luxembourg, is released from the Dachau concentration camp and sent home. Kremer soon realizes the Nazis are displeased with his bishop for refusing to co-operate with the german occupation forces, and that they want to use Kremer to provide public support for Hitler's policy regarding the Church. All it entails is his making a "small" compromise. Untersturmfuehrer Gephardt of the Gestapo, himself under the pressure from the high command, gives Kremer nine days ... or return to the living hell he has just escaped from.