Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise and various others. This movie is a decent retelling of the bomb plot against Hitler. Cruise is convincing as the hero--he’s a little stiff, but then, Von Stauffenberg was a member of the Prussian military caste. If you want easygoing, ask a Bavarian. The motivation behind Von Stauffenberg’s eagerness to cleanse Germany’s soul is told rather than shown (a mess up like the one shown in Africa could happen in any army, I fear). However, there is a lot of material to get through here, so the prologue is all we really need.
The planning is shown in meticulous detail, as is some of the political byplay, and it wasn’t boring, at least to me. It was clear that the guy in charge of communications at the Wolf’s Lair was not thrilled to be involved. Why he was not replaced by a noncom outside the wire blowing up the trunk line will probably remain forever unknown, but that was a truly fatal mistake.
Obviously, they lost. One of the key factors in that loss was Hitler talking on the phone to the leader of the ground troops in Berlin, and not targeting the radio stations and communications first, even before the SS. As it turned out, the end of the conspiracy was signaled by their phone lines being cut. The phrase “this is a military operation—of course it won’t go according to plan” was all too true, but the plan itself was sadly flawed. How ironic that Himmler, the most feared member of the Nazis, had no role in thwarting the plot, while Goebbels, an afterthought, actually managed to end the attempted coup far more effectively than SS gunfire.
One major flaw in the movie itself, though, will show up fast to anyone who knows the story. Where is Rommel? No mention was made of his part in the plot at all. Okay, Tom Cruise is the star, etc. etc., but c’mon, where’s the Desert Fox when you need him? His suicide didn’t even show up in the ‘what happened to…” list at the end.
Anyway, it was still a pretty decent movie, even if a bright five year old could have pointed out some of the plan’s flaws. Worth seeing.