In the tranquil farming village of Altersdorf in Bavaria, most of the young maintain a healthy cynicism about the Nazi movement, but one zealous youth among them, Eberhardt Langer, is lured away to the city to join the movement.One bright summer day in August 1940, while the villagers - men, women and children - were gathering a bumper crop of their annual wheat harvest, this remote little village of Altersdorf is destroyed. The few survivors are in anguish and vow to avenge the death of their loved ones and the destruction of their homes and beloved village.In France, a French Resistance group manages to get hold of a briefcase containing Top Secret documents which are then delivered to a town house in central London. These documents mention Altersdorf, so London sends two of their best to investigate.Meanwhile, one of the men of the village who had moved to the city meets with a secret group of businessmen called the Pleiades, who formulate a scheme to disrupt the Nazis' plans.