Originally published in German in 1969, this book will become the standard reference on this subject. Hoffmann has consulted all the available literature and dozens of survivors, and what emerges is a detailed and reliable account of the various cabals and conspiracies, the assassination attempts, and, at length, the July Plot of 1944. The focus is on the military and on conservative civil servants and diplomats; there is little on resistance from socialists, communists, the Church. No remarkable revelations, but misapprehensions are corrected and legends laid to rest.
