Idealized picture of Prussia to garner German support for total war

Reel 4 opens with Schill demanding that Lucadou release Mayor Nettelbeck, whom the commandant has imprisoned after Nettelbeck requisitioned cannons without Lucadou's permission. Schill announces that French scouts are almost upon Kolberg. The next scene shows Maria and Claus frantically hurrying cows away from burning buildings. Werner has set their house on fire rather than allow the French to stay there. In the next shot Maria stands outside Nettelbeck's jail cell. He hugs her as she grieves for her father, who was killed when their house burned down. Nettelbeck hands Maria a letter in which he asks the Prussian king to appoint a new commandant for Kolberg. Maria is to deliver the letter to Königsberg. In the next scene Schill attempts to talk her out of her mission, but she refuses. Lucadou relents and frees Nettelbeck, which Schill announces to the cheering citizens of Kolberg. Maria arrives in Königsberg and is refused an audience with the king by an officer. He wants to know what is in the letter but Maria will not tell him. She pleads her case and then resorts to flirting with the officer, who suggests that she see the queen instead. After telling one of the queen's attendants that she comes from Kolberg she is admitted into the queen's presence, where she is speechless before the angelic queen. The queen tells Maria that she receives daily news of Kolberg and that Maria can be very proud of her town. Maria hands over the letter, which the queen promises to give to her husband. The queen hugs Maria and says that she thus presses Prussia and Kolberg to her heart. She also says that Kolberg is one of the few jewels left in her crown. Back in Kolberg, Nettelbeck happens upon men uprooting the cobblestones in the city at the order of the commandant. Enraged, Nettelbeck goes to see Lucadou, only to find that he has been replaced, as Nettelbeck requested. Gneisenau, the new commandant, instructs Nettelbeck to go and make sure that the order to remove the cobblestones is carried out. Reluctantly, Nettelbeck does this but when he returns to Gneisenau he continues to argue with him until the commandant says that they must work together and not against each other.