To the Bitter End

When on July 20, 1944, a bomb--boldly placed inside the Wolf's Lair (Hitler's headquarters in East Prussia) by the German Anti-Nazi Resistance--exploded without killing the F hrer, the subsequent coup d' tat against the Third Reich collapsed. Most of the conspirators were summarily shot or condemned in show trials and sadistically hanged. The conspiracy involved a wide circle of former politicians, diplomats, and government officials as well as senior military men. The Resistance had started as early as 1933 and involved several planned putsches and assassination attempts. Hans B. Gisevius knew or met the major figures--including Beck, Canaris, Oster, Goerdeler, and von Stauffenberg--and barely escaped after the coup's failure. One of the few survivors of the German Anti-Nazi Resistance, Gisevius traces its history, from the 1933 Reichstag fire to Germany's defeat in 1945, in a book as riveting as it is exceptional.


About the Author
One of the earliest and most active plotters, and later a prosecution witness at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, Hans B. Gisevius (1904-1974) used his positions in the Gestapo and the Abwehr (military intelligence) to further the anti-Nazi conspiracy.