Blood & Gold ending explained: who ends up with the gold?
German World War II action thriller Blood & Gold has arrived, guns blazing, on Netflix. It’s a fast-paced cross between a spaghetti western and Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds set in the spring of 1945 that features betrayal, lots of gory deaths and a plot to steal hidden gold.
The movie introduces us to deserting soldier Heinrich, who is captured by a group of SS officers in the German countryside. They proceed to hang him from a tree, but after they depart he is rescued by local farmer’s daughter Elsa, who takes him to the house where she lives with her brother, Paule.
Unfortunately, the Nazis return and Elsa, Paule and Heinrich have to escape. And when Paule sneaks back home and is captured, Elsa and Heinrich have to head into the local village of Sonnenberg – where the soldiers have set up a command centre – to try and save him.
Meanwhile, in Sonnenberg, the SS gang are on the search for hidden loot – they have been told a Jewish family who fled the village left behind 31 gold bars. It’s not hidden in their abandoned house, however, and with the war looking increasingly lost, Lieutenant Colonel von Starnfeld and his men are determined to find it, even if it means shooting everyone in the village first.
So where is the gold, who has it, and does anyone in Sonnenberg survive the wrath of the Nazis? Read on, but expect major spoilers ahead.
Blood & Gold ending explained
Paule is taken by the Nazis to the church bell tower, where they intend to hang him on the instructions of von Starnfeld and his second in command, Dorfler.
However, Paule fights back, throwing one of the SS men out of the tower, before he is shot by the other invaders. Heinrich sneaks into the church and attempts to save him, but Paule is already dead and Heinrich ends up being shot himself as he escapes.
Seeing her brother killed, Elsa runs out into the village square, where she is captured by von Starnfeld. He takes her back to the town’s inn, and proceeds to tell her about the love of his life, a woman named Rebecca who he shot dead because she was Jewish.
He makes Elsa lie down beside him, and when he is asleep she notices he has a ring on one finger, and inside it is a cyanide pill. She removes it, and when von Starnfeld wakes, she pretends to kiss him, but instead thrusts the pill into his throat, and he collapses on the floor, foaming at the mouth, and then dies a rather gurgling death.
A wounded Heinrich is taken in by the local priest and a woman from the village, and they fill him in about the missing gold that the Nazis are looking for. The priest knows it was actually stolen by four villagers – led by the town’s mayor and a very tough woman named Sonja – and they hid it in a grave to keep it safe until the end of the war.
Sonja, meanwhile, has already killed the mayor, who wanted to give the hidden loot to the Nazis to make them go away. She and her two remaining accomplices go to the grave – the name on which is Walter Hill, perhaps a moviemaker’s nod to the Hollywood action director of the same name – only to find that the gold is no longer there.
The priest has revealed to Heinrich what happened to it – he saw Sonja steal it on the night when the Jewish family were being taken by force from their home by other villagers, and he later retrieved it from the grave and hid it beneath the altar in the church.
Sonja has figured this out, however, and she attacks the priest on his way home before heading to the church to retrieve the gold.
Heinrich – despite bleeding from a large wound in his leg – stumbles off to rescue Elsa (not knowing she has already rescued herself) and gets caught by Dorfler, who says he will kill Heinrich’s daughter (who is being raised by friends in another town) if he doesn’t reveal where the money is.
Soon Heinrich, Dorfler and his men, the priest, and Sonja are all at the church – while Elsa prepares to attack from outside – but when Sonja’s pals try and get the gold they discover it is booby trapped, and an explosion is set off, scattering the gold bars all over the church floor.
Dorfler shoots the priest, Elsa fires a launcher at the bell tower, which collapses into the church, and chaos ensues as a gun battle breaks out. Within a few minutes just about everyone is dead except Elsa (wounded), Heinrich (really wounded) and Dorfler (wounded but still capable of hitting Elsa and trying to strangle her).
Heinrich crawls across the floor and attacks Dorfler with a gold bar to the head. He falls down, and Heinrich rams the gold bar into his face, killing him.
He and Elsa stagger out of the church, ignoring the gold bars on the floor. Unbeknownst to them, a young member of Dorfler’s team is hidden in the fallen bell, and once they have left he gets up and walks towards the gold, unable to believe his luck.
However, Sonja – the only other survivor – rises up from behind a pew, and shoots him.
Elsa is with Heinrich when he is finally reunited with his daughter Lottchen, and in a final scene we discover what has happened to both the gold and greedy Sonja.
She is seen driving away, smiling, from Sonnenberg just as the radio announces that Hitler has died.
However, her car suddenly explodes after being fired on by a tank, and she is thrown, badly burnt, from the wreckage. A group of American soldiers appear, and they survey the damage they have caused (and don’t seem too worried that they have fired on a civilian without warning).
One of them finds the gold bars scattered in the grass, and the men decide between them that they aren’t going to report the find – they are going to keep the gold for themselves.
Blood & Gold is available to watch on Netflix.
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