September 4, 1992 | During the early interviews, the gruffly elegant Axel von dem Bussche sounds more confused than outraged, more quizzical than horrified, as he recalls his initial inability to fully fathom the horrors of the Third Reich.

The final solution? The mass murder of political prisoners?

“You couldn’t grasp the concept of that,” Bussche says in fluent English as he rummages for a cigarette. “You’d think, ‘What good would that do?'"

But then came the day when Bussche, a young officer in the German 9th Infantry Regiment, had the scales brutally ripped from his eyes. In a remote corner of the war, he witnessed a large-scale execution of civilians by SS firing squads. “It’s a moment,” Bussche says, his self-control obviously failing him, “when the bottom of everything falls out, and keeps away. . .”

Bussche’s vivid testimony is a key element of The Restless Conscience, Hava Kohav Beller’s impressively researched and quietly astonishing study of anti-Hitler resistance within Nazi Germany. The Oscar-nominated documentary begins a limited run Sunday at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in conjunction with MFA’s current photo exhibit, Rescuers of the Holocaust: Portraits by Gay Block. Go. See. Marvel. And, if you have tears left, weep.

The Restless Conscience relies on archival footage and newly filmed interviews to offer a gripping account of the many different Germans -- military officers, labor leaders, ministers, aristocrats, bureaucrats -- who found themselves loosely united in their repulsion at the madness unleashed by Adolf Hitler. The film informs us that the 9th Infantry, Bussche’s regiment, had more officers executed by Hitler than any other such unit in the German army. We hear harrowing testimony from some of the surviving relatives of those officers and from the widows, children and close friends of many, many more unlikely heroes.

A few of the dissident officers who turned against Hitler during the early days of the Third Reich are visibly uneasy as they admit that, to fight the horror they had to be, to a large degree, co-opted by it. “The only way to change the German government in the period between 1933 and 1945 was with the German military,” one ex-officer declares, “and not against them.”

But even their status as insiders did not help the dissidents in their campaign to remove Hitler from power. Some of the most appalling scenes in The Restless Conscience detail the efforts of German emissaries to enlist support from British officials in the 1930s, when it appeared possible to stage a military coup that would oust Hitler. Not only did the British officials refuse to cooperate -- the British Foreign Office strongly suggested that the Germans plotting against their leader were traitors.

Such was the mood of a period when many British leaders thought Hitler might be useful as a unifying force for Germany. And when Neville Chamberlain thought he could obtain “peace in our time.”

Later, after the war broke out in earnest, British and U.S. leaders refused to believe that there was such a thing as a German anti-Nazi underground. By then, many German officers realized there would be only one way to stop Hitler -- assassination.

Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist, another German army veteran, recalls being recruited for a suicide mission to detonate explosives near Hitler. It was, von Kleist notes with classic understatement, “a difficult decision, I must say.” He sought advice from his father -- who gave von Kleist his whole-hearted support. “You must do it,” his father told him. “A man who doesn’t take such a chance will never be happy again in his life.”

But fate intervened, and the plan was never carried out. Other assassination attempts were made, none of them successful, and most of the German officers responsible were tried and executed. Later, their widows and survivors were billed for the cost of the executions.

The Restless Conscience is by no means limited to accounts of military men.  The film also honors such civilian patriots as Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who warned from his pulpit that, “The more spiritual you are, the more political you must be. Only if you cry for the Jews are you permitted to sing the Gregorian chants.” Bonhoeffer was arrested, then executed.  Idealistic college students formed The White Rose, an underground group that distributed leaflets condemning the Third Reich’s activities. They were arrested, tried and beheaded.

Sometimes, the damndest people are heroes. Sometimes, the most heroic people are damned.

The Restless Conscience is superior documentary moviemaking, and a gripping history lesson. More important, it also is a worthy tribute to those Germans who, at terrible risk to their lives, dared to say no and dared to act on what their consciences demanded.