Das Buschgespenst plot
In the forests of the Erzgebirge, a gang of smugglers brings great mischief. Anyone who dares to oppose them will be killed in cold blood. The fear of the so-called catastrophic "forest spirit" behind it all paralyzes the local population. Then the stranger Arndt shows up; he begins an investigation into a murder that happened twenty years ago and for which he ended up innocent in prison. The forester Wunderlich and the weaver Eduard Hauser want to help him, but then Hauser becomes the victim of a sinister plot and is arrested as the alleged 'forest spirit'...