Top Secret Trial of the Third Reich  is the true story of the assassination attempt on Hitler's life- the events that formed the basis for the fiction film Valkyrie.

In August of 1944, Hitler ordered the trial of the “Men of the 20th of July,” a group of resistance fighters who conspired to assassinate the Führer.  Under orders from Goebbels, cameras were hidden in the courtroom and the resulting footage was transformed into a propaganda tool.  Goebbels released his film to the public, but only succeeded in generating sympathy for resistance members, who were sentenced to death by the visibly deranged Nazi tribunal judge, Roland Freisler.  Having miscalculated the impact of these images, Goebbels ordered the film banned and destroyed.  But one print has been found.

Through authentic footage of the trial, the film details the various attempts to assassinate Hitler—from the bomb in Munich's Bürgerbräukeller to Claus von Stauffenberg's explosive attack on the Wolfsschanze—and sheds light on the anti-Nazi resistance.  Featuring previously unavailable film and sound documentation of the National Committee for a Free Germany, a German resistance group in a Russian camp, Top Secret Trial of the Third Reich also unearths new information about members of the Kreisau Circle and the White Rose.