Claus von Stauffenberg and the movie Valkyrie

Sailor

Regular Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2009
Messages
591
Likes
6
Last night I hired the movie Valkyrie, which has just been released here to DVD. As a movie I gave it an 8 out of 10.

Claus von Stauffenberg, was a man famous for being a German Army Officer who came closest to a assassinating Adolf Hitler. Von Stauffenberg is the closest figure Germany has to a national hero during World War 2.

Valkyrie starts with a prequel sequence in North Africa. Von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise) is a disaffected officer who is questioning Hitler's regime and that he was leading Germany to the path of destruction. During a British air raid he is injured badly, loosing an eye, his right hand and two fingers on his left hand. He can no long serve on the front line. In 1943 General Henning von Tresckow (Kenneth Branagh) fails in his attempt to assassin Hitler and the German Resistance loss an army officer to help with operations. Von Stauffenberg is recruited in the resistance and the General Staff. He comes up with the Valkyrie plan which was to make the assassination of Hitler look like an SS plot, and get the army to launch a coup to 'protect' the Nazi regime. Von Stauffenberg is the only man who could get close to Hitler because he was the Chief-of-Staff for the Reserve Army General.

The film is split into three major parts, the planning, the assassination attempt and the attempted coup.



 

EnlightenedMonk

Member of The Month JULY 2009
Senior Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2009
Messages
3,831
Likes
28
I watched the movie too...

In my opinion it is bogged down because the lead character is not von Stauffenberg, but Tom Cruise trying to play von Stauffenberg...
 

Sailor

Regular Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2009
Messages
591
Likes
6
Yes I'd agree to that. I would not have picked Tom Cruise as he is too well known.
However they are related and look very much alike.

Claus von Stauffenberg was his great uncle.
 

EnlightenedMonk

Member of The Month JULY 2009
Senior Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2009
Messages
3,831
Likes
28
Yes I'd agree to that. I would not have picked Tom Cruise as he is too well known.
However they are related and look very much alike.

Claus von Stauffenberg was his great uncle.
Oh !!! I didn't know that... that explains the resemblance I guess...

But, certainly another similar looking actor with a lesser pedigree would have done a better job I guess... and would have been more believable as well....

Tom Cruise's star status is detrimental to the movie IMHO...
 

Su-47

Regular Member
Joined
Apr 20, 2009
Messages
282
Likes
40
Yes I'd agree to that. I would not have picked Tom Cruise as he is too well known.
However they are related and look very much alike.

Claus von Stauffenberg was his great uncle.
Interesting. I watched Valkyrie. The movie, though realistic, was too boring for me. I was watching with some friends and they all hated it downright (they hate any movie where there is no comedy or where giant transforming robots don't blow up cities)
 

S.A.T.A

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 28, 2009
Messages
2,569
Likes
1,560
The cast of the movie was quite excellent and the screen play was good too,its difficult to adapt to the screen a story that is quite well known to most audience(western atleast).What let the movie down was the lack of Character development...........

The movie makers for obvious reasons did not want delve too deeply into why a young German aristocrat, who admired Hitler and the Nazis and who to an extent hared Nazi race theories,turned into the most daring anti Nazi conspirator.

Still i think it was one of Cruise's better movie in recent years.
 

johnee

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 1, 2009
Messages
3,473
Likes
499
SATA,
so what is the reason? Why did he turn into anti-Nazi?
 

S.A.T.A

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 28, 2009
Messages
2,569
Likes
1,560
Most German aristocrats reviled the governments of the volks and had never come to terms with the end of the Hohenzollern reich and ever since the end of the great war attempts had been continuously made to bring back the kaiser to power.Stauffenberg came from pretty much the same milieu.

However the black orchestra plot must have been directly related to the way the war was being conducted,the aristocrats from the old families still dominated the Wehrmacht and they thought Hitler and Nazi fanatics will destroy the army and the country before the war would end.

while many Germans held racist views,but that never went so far as holocaust and total extermination.By the closing days of the war German soldiers and those from officer corps(not the SS)were the most disillusioned lot.Stauffenberg was one of the disillusioned.
 

kuku

Respected Member
Regular Member
Joined
Mar 30, 2009
Messages
510
Likes
10
Country flag
My doubts about the movie were quite silly.

All i was thinking about was this, the guys were ready to die for their cause, so why didnt they just shoot the damn devil in the head.
 

Sailor

Regular Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2009
Messages
591
Likes
6
My doubts about the movie were quite silly.

All i was thinking about was this, the guys were ready to die for their cause, so why didn't they just shoot the damn devil in the head.
Well the Islamic suicide bombers had yet to become fashionable, but you make a very interesting point. You are a young man living in today's world who now takes for granted political assassinations by suicide. Back then and through to today in a Western society it was not part of our ethos. There are varying reasons for this including the Christian teachings that taking one's own life is wrong in God's eyes under any circumstances.
No one including Claus von Stauffenberg himself wanted to die. In fact the whole plot to get rid of Hitler and the Nazis was to try and resurrect what was left of any common decency in the world for Germany and bring the war to a close in Germany's terms. Even von Stauffenberg knew that by then the war couldn't be won.

Fate willed otherwise and Hitler survived, protected by the leg of the table from the bomb.
Hitler had a date with his death at a later time and God in his wisdom wanted the great evil to be all bought to final justice.
 

kuku

Respected Member
Regular Member
Joined
Mar 30, 2009
Messages
510
Likes
10
Country flag
Well you are correct, i am just about as different from that era and that place as possible,

The bombing attempts would have killed a lot of people around hitler, many of them simple soldiers with no malice towards any, just carring out their duty, so i do not quite understand the christian teaching or western ethos part of it.

Every one of the people involved knew if the plan failed none of them would make it through the week alive, so i guess it was a risk they all took, might as well make sure they did it right.
 

EnlightenedMonk

Member of The Month JULY 2009
Senior Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2009
Messages
3,831
Likes
28
Most of these historical movies generally tend to fail because everyone knows what will happen at the end of it... so, if you know the story beforehand, it is difficult to keep the audience engaged...

In that respect, Gandhi was one of the best, because you knew the story beforehand, yet the movie kept your attention due to its excellent qualities...
 

johnee

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 1, 2009
Messages
3,473
Likes
499
Well you are correct, i am just about as different from that era and that place as possible,

The bombing attempts would have killed a lot of people around hitler, many of them simple soldiers with no malice towards any, just carring out their duty, so i do not quite understand the christian teaching or western ethos part of it.

Every one of the people involved knew if the plan failed none of them would make it through the week alive, so i guess it was a risk they all took, might as well make sure they did it right.
Exactly. Also, if they were not ready to risk their lives, they could have easily got someone hired for the job. World was not so different then. Some poorman would have been ready to blow himself for a right price.

PS: If Nazis are going to be owned as christians, then their other actions like holocaust also have to be owned by christians and christianity. So, much for christian ethos and western thoughts........
 

ShyAngel

Founding Member
Regular Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2009
Messages
454
Likes
8
Gosh at 1st I thought Hitler was death in this film but then he wasn't and Tom and the rest of folks get killed.
Ufffffffff


:(
 

Auberon

Regular Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2009
Messages
275
Likes
5
Gosh at 1st I thought Hitler was death in this film but then he wasn't and Tom and the rest of folks get killed.
Ufffffffff


:(
If a totally fictious kill-em-Nazis, everyone is happy with lotsa blood and gore is what you're looking for, am told Inglorious Basterds is right up there ;)
 

Sailor

Regular Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2009
Messages
591
Likes
6
Exactly. Also, if they were not ready to risk their lives, they could have easily got someone hired for the job. World was not so different then. Some poorman would have been ready to blow himself for a right price.

PS: If Nazis are going to be owned as christians, then their other actions like holocaust also have to be owned by christians and christianity. So, much for christian ethos and western thoughts........
Johnee, the ones asked to that meeting were a privileged part of the Nazi inner sanctum. Even von Stauffenberg would have had to keep his anti Nazi thoughts secret to be there at all.
No 'poor man' would have got within miles of the place without being shot by the SS.
 

johnee

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 1, 2009
Messages
3,473
Likes
499
Johnee, the ones asked to that meeting were a privileged part of the Nazi inner sanctum. Even von Stauffenberg would have had to keep his anti Nazi thoughts secret to be there at all.
No 'poor man' would have got within miles of the place without being shot by the SS.
Well, an assassination attempt doesnt have to be limited to just that meeting! And when we talk of suicide missions, SS couldnt have done much, could it?
 

S.A.T.A

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 28, 2009
Messages
2,569
Likes
1,560
By the time Hitler turned from a national hero into somebody everyone wanted to kill,he had become very reclusive.Most of the time was spent in wolf's lair,his east Prussian forest retreat.The wolf's lair had several layers of security which was impossible to breach for any rag tag assassination attempt.

The significance of the Stauffenberg plot was this had best chance to succeed,because it was almost entirely orchestrated from within the German Wehrmacht involving ranking officers,they even had a post Hitler plan of succession.The thought of simply putting bullet to Hitler was impractical.nobody was allowed to carry fire arm in the presence of Hitler.besides the black orchestra also wanted to takeout Himmler, the chief of the SS,along with Hitler,If Hitler was dead and Himmler was alive it would simply mean a transfer of power to a person more Psychopath than Hitler.

The plot was prefect but they erred in the execution.Stauffenberg was supposed to fit two bombs in his briefcase,but fate had it other wise and he only managed to set only one bomb.had both the bombs,all of them at the conference would have been dead(oak table or no oak table)

Even after the assassination had failed,the conspirators could have managed to orchestrate a successful coups and removed the Nazis from power,but delays in executing the coup in the initial hours of the assassination attempt gave the Nazis to regroup and brush the coup.

Hitler was destined to die by his own hand.
 

shiv

Regular Member
Joined
Mar 4, 2009
Messages
326
Likes
47
do you folks know this-->there were 42 attempts to kill hitler,he survived everyone of them,stauffenberg was 15th.

including suicide bombers, shooting him, blowing him up, crashing his plane, making it look accidental and many more. His most Famous assisnation attempt would be of Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg whos July 20th 1944 plot to kill Hitler failed when his bomb blew up. From what he saw, he was fully convinced that no one in the room could have survived. Although four people were killed and almost all survivors were injured, Hitler himself was shielded from the blast by the heavy, solid-oak conference table and was only slightly wounded.
 

Sailor

Regular Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2009
Messages
591
Likes
6
I watched my DVD at home last night and I have to make one major point about the making of the movie. The actors lost all credibility as they are all known British and Americans.
No effort was attempted to try and get English speaking Germans with accents to give more credibility. I can't help but compare this movie to "A Bridge Too Far" that was made in 1974 where they did just that. Another that comes to mind was "Das Boot" The Boat.
 

Global Defence

New threads

Articles

Top