The year is 1936. Seven prisoners escape from the fictitious Westhofen concentration camp (partly based on the real Osthofen concentration camp) near the Rhine. The escapees are: a writer, a circus performer, a schoolmaster, a farmer, a Jewish grocery clerk, George Heisler (Spencer Tracy) and his friend Wallau (Ray Collins).
The camp commandant erects a row of seven crosses and vows to "put a man on each." The first to be apprehended is Wallau, who dies without giving up any information. With the dead Wallau narrating, the film follows Heisler as he makes his way across the German countryside, steals a jacket to cover his prison garb, and watches as the Nazis round up other escaped prisoners, where they are returned to the camp and hung on crosses, suspended by their arms tied behind their backs. Through it all, the local population seems largely indifferent.
Heisler first makes his way to his home city of Mainz, where his former girl friend, Leni (Kaaren Verne), had promised to wait for him. But she has since married and refuses to help. He is given a suit of clothes by Mme. Marelli (Agnes Moorehead), and nearby one of his fellow escapees, the acrobat, leaps to his death to avoid being captured. With his options running out, Heisler goes to an old friend, Paul Roeder (Hume Cronyn). Though Roeder is a factory worker with a wife (Jessica Tandy), and young children, he still risks all to help Heisler. Roeder gets in touch with the German underground, whose members risk their lives to get Heisler out of the country. Through his exposure to this courage and kindness, and with the help toward the end of a sympathetic waitress (Signe Hasso), Heisler regains his faith in humanity. He escapes via boat to an unknown destination that he identifies as "probably Holland."
Directed by Fred Zinnemann
Screenplay by Helen Deutsch
Based on The Seventh Cross
by Anna Seghers
Produced by Pandro S. Berman
Starring
Spencer Tracy
Signe Hasso
Hume Cronyn
Jessica Tandy
Agnes Moorehead
Herbert Rudley
Felix Bressart
Ray Collins
Cinematography Karl Freund
Edited by Thomas Richards
Music by Roy Webb
Spencer Tracy as George Heisler
Signe Hasso as Toni
Hume Cronyn as Paul Roeder
Jessica Tandy as Liesel Roeder
Agnes Moorehead as Madame Marelli
Herbert Rudley as Franz Marnet
Felix Bressart as Poldi Schlamm
Ray Collins as Ernst Wallau / narrator
Alexander Granach as Zillich
Katherine Locke as Frau Hedy Sauer
George Macready as Bruno Sauer
Paul Guilfoyle as Fiedler
Stephen Geray as Dr. Loewenstein
Kurt Katch as Leo Hermann
Kaaren Verne as Leni
Konstantin Shayne as Fuellgrabe, a writer
George Suzanne as Bellani, an acrobat
John Wengraf as Overkamp
George Zucco as Fahrenburg
Steven Muller as Hellwig
Eily Malyon as Fraulein Bachmann
James Dime as a prisoner in a concentration camp