On July 20, 1944, shortly after 12:40 PM, a bomb detonated under the map table in the operations barracks of the "Wolf's Lair," the "Führer Headquarters" in East Prussia. Four people died, but Adolf Hitler only suffered minor burns and abrasions. The assassin, Colonel von Stauffenberg, managed to leave the exclusion zone at the last moment. Believing Hitler to be dead, he flew to Berlin to join his co-conspirators in leading the coup: "Operation Valkyrie" was underway. It ended in disaster, and Stauffenberg died 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, countless feature films have focused on the drama, and even Hollywood has taken notice of 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.