‘It is now time that something was done. But the man who has the courage to do something must do it in the knowledge that he will go down in German history as a traitor. If he does not, however, he will be a traitor to his own conscience' Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, one of tEe conspirators against Hider, July 1944

The July 1944 plot to kill Adolf Hitler was a desperate attempt by a group of senior officers to redeem Germany's honour and end the Second World War. They were heroic because they knew their chances of success were slight and that the result of their failure would undoubtedly be a terrible death. They wanted to leave a message for later generations: that there were Germans who understood the evils of Nazism and were willing to act against it.

This extraordinary story is the basis for Bryan Singer's major new film VALKYRIE.

LUCK OF THE DEVIL is taken from lan Kershaw's bestselling HITLER 1936-1945: NEMESIS and is a brilliant account of just what happened in those fateful days at Hitler's Wolf's Lair headquarters, when his opponents came so close to assassinating one of the modern era's most terrible figures.

  List of Illustrations

  Luck of the Devil

        DOCUMENTS

1 Fabian von Schlabrendorff's Account of the Assassination Attempt of i3 March 1943

2 The Kreisau Circle's 'Principles for the New Order in Germany', 9 August I943

3 Carl Goerdeler's Peace Plan, late summer to autumn 1943

4 Extracts from the Valkyrie Order of 26 May 1942- and Tresckow's amended plan of September / October 1943

5 Timetable for the BendlerstraBe group with orders prepared for the uprising

6 SS Report on the Conspiracy, 26 July i944

7 Teletype Messages from Witzleben and Stauffenberg at BendlerstraBe, 20 July 1944

8 Speech by Hitler, 221 July 1944, at about Ia.m.

9 Jodl's address, 24 July 1944

10 Extracts from the trials before the People's Court

11 A prison warden's description of the executions

12 Helmut Graf yon Moltke's last letter

13 Peter Graf Yorck von Wartenburg's farewell letters to his mother and his wife

Index