Zandra, the daughter of the ruler of the lost city of
Pallandria, is saved by Tarzan,the Ape Man, when she becomes trapped
on a rock shelf while trying to rescue Tarzan's son Boy.
Later, in their tree house, Boy reads Tarzan a letter
from Jane, who is in London visiting her sick mother, describing the
Nazi peril. Soon after, the peril encroaches upon the jungle
when Nazi planes fly overhead in search of oil and tin to fuel the
war effort. While parachuting into the jungle, one of the
soldiers, Lieutenant Schmidt, is injured and radios a German pilot
for help. Dropping down to a lower altitude to search for the
injured soldier, the pilot is blinded by a flock of frightened birds
and crashes his plane. Witnessing the crash, Tarzan saves
Schmidt from the jaws of a hungry crocodile and takes the
unconscious soldier to his tree house. Upon regaining
consciousness, Schmidt pretends to be British.
Meanwhile, in Pallandria, the Germans, led by Colonel
Von Reichart, are naïvely welcomed by Zandra and her father and
brother Archmet. The next day, the Germans seize control of
the city and enslave the natives to gather raw materials for the
war. When the Colonel makes sexual advances to Zandra, Archmet
comes to her aid and is killed by the Nazis. Schmidt,
meanwhile, has reassembled his radio and is calling Berlin for
reinforcements when Cheetah, Tarzan's chimp, steals a coil from the
radio and interrupts the broadcast.
Soon after, Tarzan hears gunfire in the jungle and
finds Zandra being pursued by the Nazis. Tarzan sweeps down
from a tree and carries her to safety, and when the Nazis try to
ford a river to follow them, all but the Sergeant are eaten by
carnivorous fish. Later, when Cheetah steals Schmidt's radio
coil again, he shoots at her and chases her into the jungle.
Coming to her rescue, Cheetah's elephant friend pushes the German
over a cliff.
As the Sergeant returns to Pallandria with news that
Tarzan is in possession of the radio, Zandra tries to convince the
Ape Man that the Nazis are his enemies. In response, Tarzan
claims to be an isolationist and refuses to join the fight.
When Zandra insists on returning to her village, Tarzan follows her
into the jungle, and in his absence, the Nazis raid the tree house
and seize the radio. As the Nazis begin to torture Boy,
demanding that he tell them the location of the coil, Tarzan swings
from a tree to his rescue and is shot down by a Nazi bullet.
After the Nazis leave with Boy as their prisoner,
Cheetah takes Zandra to the injured Tarzan, and she nurses him back
to health. When Tarzan learns that the Germans have kidnapped
Boy, he declares war and hurries to Pallandria. There, he is
captured by the Nazis and sentenced to die before a firing squad the
following morning. Von Reichart also sentences Zandra to death
after she rejects his sexual advances. When the people of
Pallandria rally to Zandra's defense, Von Reichart orders that ten
percent of the population join Tarzan in front of the firing squad.
Cheetah, meanwhile, slips into the city, reattaches the coil to the
radio, and frees Tarzan.
After killing the Sergeant with a knife throw, Tarzan
dismantles the German machine gun on the city's tower and then frees
the imprisoned people of Pallandria. Armed with German rifles,
the people overthrow their oppressors, sending the Colonel scurrying
into the jungle with the radio. Tarzan follows and, after the
Colonel frantically calls Berlin, the Ape Man lures him into a trap
with a hungry lion. Cheetah then takes control of the
microphone, and when Berlin headquarters answers the call, they
mistake the chattering chimp for Hitler.