On July 20, 1944, shortly after 12:40 PM, a bomb detonates under the map table in the operations barracks of the "Wolf's Lair," the "Führer Headquarters" in East Prussia. Four people die, but Adolf Hitler suffers only minor burns and abrasions. The assassin, Colonel von Stauffenberg, manages to leave the exclusion zone at the last minute. Believing Hitler to be dead, he flies to Berlin to join the conspirators in taking control of the coup: "Operation Valkyrie" is underway. It ends in disaster – and Stauffenberg dies in a hail of bullets.

Few events in German history have developed such symbolic power as the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20. Politics has often interpreted the assassination for its own purposes, and countless feature films have been dedicated to the drama, with Hollywood even discovering the story. But what really happened, beyond holiday speeches and film scripts? Tobias Kniebe has precisely reconstructed the background and course of these dramatic events: How did the planning unfold? What exactly caused the coup to fail? How did the Stauffenberg family experience the tragic events? A meticulously researched account of a key moment in German history – and a first-rate reading adventure.