AllMovie

The incredible story of the wives of various men who led the failed attempt to assassinate Adolph Hitler in 1944 is told in this remarkable documentary. Director Irmgard von zur Muhlen interviews the wives for a first-hand account of the German Resistance movement and the attempted assassination itself. Newsreels of that moment in time lend immediacy to their stories. Once the attempt failed, Hitler had the perpetrators die a slow death by hanging, he confiscated their properties, disbanded their families, sent their children away from their mothers and changed their names, and arrested many of the wives. Incredibly, these women were not exonerated of the charges against them until long after the war had ended, in spite of the fact that even judges who had ruled in favor of Hitler's actions were right back on the bench in 1946.