July 21st, 1944, 0.15: With "May our holy Germany live!" on his lips Claus Schenk Count von Stauffenberg dies by the bullets of a firing squad.
Flashback: during a visit of an Wagner opera Stauffenberg, the young ardent officer, proposes marriage to his financé Nina von Lerchenfeld - in view of Hitler's loge, where the Fuehrer listens the performance.
The war starts and Stauffenberg has to go to the front - yet without any doubt about the German war objetives. From the Poland campaign he writes letters home to his wife describing his impressions: the Polish population is an "unbelieveable mob, many Jews and much mixed people. A people that enjoys living only under the knout".
Colonel Henning von Tresckow belonged to those who opened his eyes for the German war crimes committed behind the front line - and his ears for such painful reports like the one of the young Polja about the annihilation of her village.
Bably wounded during the retreat in Tunesia Stauffenberg is brought to a hospital in Munich. Nina has the difficult task to tell him that not only has he lost an eye but also his right hand and two fingers of the left. Nina is afraid to learn that in the meantime Stauffenberg is convinved that it is his duty to contribute to Hitler's elimination.
And there are more of the same opinion in the military. Together with these men Stauffenberg prepares the assasination and the coup d'etat after Hitler's death.
Because of his promotion to chief of staff of General Friedrich Fromm's army he gets the rare chance to get close to Hitler during one of the briefings at the HQ "Wolfschanze" and ignite a bomb. As chief of staff he has enough authority and free hand to use the vaccum of popwer after Hitler's death and accomplish the coup d'etat.
On July 20th, 1944, Stauffenberg and his adjutant Lt. Werner von Haeften arrive at 10 a.m. at the airfield in Rastenburg. In a brief-case they carry two bombs unnoticed. Under great danger to be caught, they retreat to a room to prepare the bombs, before meeting Hitler. It knocks on the door, and Stauffenberg is ordered to hurry up. Only at the last moment he manages to at least set up one of the two bombs and put them back into his case. In the briefing room he places the brief-case as close to Hitler as possible, mumbles an excuse and leaves the room.
Outside Heaften waits in the car. The bomb explodes, debris, smoke and wounded everywhere, nobody can possible have survived inside the barrack.
Stauffenberg orders fellow-conspirator General Erich Fellgiebel to report the sucessful assasination to Berlin and to immediately afterwards disconnect all lines.
Stauffenberg has to get back to Berlin to complete the second step of the operation. "Walkyrie" is to be called out, a plan to avoid inner turmoils with Fromm's army taking over power.
But when Stauffenberg lands in Berlin two hours later, everything is strangely calm. "Something terrible has happened: the Fuehrer is alive!", report Fellgiebel from Wolfsschanze to Berlin. At Bendlerstreet, the center of the operation, everybody feels insecure, but there is no turning back. Stauffenberg insists that Hitler canot have survived the assasination, "Walkyrie" has to be given out! Fromm's army must be alerted, orders given. All important departments, SS-offices and ministries need to be occupied and disarmed. The machinery starts its work until the radio, which the conspirators did not manage to take over, confirms the news that Hitler is alive.
Nerveousness and doubts rise. The operation begins to topple. At midnight the upraising is over. Soldiers storm the Bendlerblock and arrest the conspirators. In a drumhead court-martial General Fromm sentences Stauffenberg Werner von Haeften, Friedrich Olbricht and Albrecht Ritter Mertz von Quirnheim to death. At midnight the four are executed in the court of the Bendlerblock.