During the Third Reich, 3,000 out of 65 million Germans were imprisoned for speaking out against Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime, a post-war investigator concluded. Which means, of course, that the vast majority of Germans subserviently fell into line with Hitler’s cruel and evil policies.

Among the dissenters were a number of men and women from aristocratic backgrounds. Courageously defying the Nazis, they paid dearly for their views.

Jonathan Freedland, a British journalist and broadcaster, profiles them in The Traitors Circle (HarperCollins). In this thoroughly researched and dense volume, he concentrates on a handful of principled and conscientious objectors who could not abide Nazi Germany’s tyranny, state-sponsored antisemitism, and aggressive foreign policy.

Arthur Zarden, the most senior official in the Ministry of Finance, was among them. With Hitler’s accession to power in 1933, his........

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