Es geschah am 20. Juli

With major losses on the Russian front, and British and American forces threatening to break out of the hedgerow country in Normandy, a disparate assortment of Germans, civilian and military, try to assassinate Hitler and bring peace.

Pabst's late movie praises the motives of the people who oppose Hitler on the grounds of G*d, civilization, and compassion for the millions who would otherwise die. In actual fact, they were mostly a conservative bunch, and motives like loss of rights of military officers and "We're losing the war! We better stop before I get hurt!" were likely in the mix of motives. It's also interesting to note that the vaunted ruthless German efficiency that still filled war movies of the period are absent, both from the folks busy trying to track down any traitors to the Third Reich, and those who tried to plant a bomb and got it wrong. Perhaps we need a black comedy like THE DEATH OF STALIN to make the point.

Regardless of the actual motives of the people involved, Pabst and his writers decided on a series of events shown with a more dispassionate camera under Kurt Hasse as appropriate; given that everyone could figure out the attempt failed, this was a good choice.