When on July 20, 1944, a bomb - boldly placed inside Hitler's headquarters by Colonel Count Claus von Stauffenberg - exploded without killing the Fuhrer, the subsequent coup d'etat against the Third Reich, codenamed Valkyrie, collapsed. The conspirators were summarily shot or condemned in show trials and sadistically hanged. One of the few survivors of the conspiracy was Hans Bernd Gisevius, who had used his positions in the Gestapo and the Abwehr (military intelligence) to further the anti-Nazi plot. He knew well or had met the major figures involved in planning Valkyrie, including General August Beck, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, Colonel Hans Oster, and von Stauffenberg.<BR>The conspiracy was widespread, involving a wide circle of former politicians, diplomats, and government officials as well as senior military men. The anti-Hitler movement, largely motivated by moral outrage rather than by political expediency, had started as early as 1933 and involved several putsches and assassination attempts. This is an abridged edition of To the Bitter End by Hans Bernd Gisevius.