Valkyrie w/ Tom Cruise

[EricNau]

Ah! I was half-and-half in understanding your question.

For the most part It's first-person and follows Stauffenberg's perspective, but it does cut to some other characters to fill in key facts and explain the events leading up to Stauffenberg's assignment at the War Ministry. It starts out with some in-character narration by Cruise, but after that there isn't a whole lot of narration. The dialogue explains everything well enough.

OK - thanks. When that's the case, it makes the use of alternate languages far more palatable.

 

[MacTraveller]

Tom Cruise = pretty boy

Since when did pretty boy actors get cast as cutthroat Nazi assassins?

Xenu, I choose YOU!

 

[Luftwaffles]

Tom Cruise = pretty boy

Since when did pretty boy actors get cast as cutthroat Nazi assassins?

Xenu, I choose YOU!

Have you ever seen a picture of Stauffenberg? He is practically the definition of "pretty boy".

And he was HARDLY what any sane man would call a "cutthroat Nazi assassin". He spent the last years of his life fighting against the atrocities of the SS and trying to bring down the most cold-hearted, evil murderous madman in the history of the world. Why? So he could end World War II and save millions of lives on both sides.

 

[63dot]

Have you ever seen a picture of Stauffenberg? He is practically the definition of "pretty boy".

And he was HARDLY what any sane man would call a "cutthroat Nazi assassin". He spent the last years of his life fighting against the atrocities of the SS and trying to bring down the most cold-hearted, evil murderous madman in the history of the world. Why? So he could end World War II and save millions of lives on both sides.

What is interesting about Tom Cruise in this movie is that he does look like Colonel Stauffenberg. In the past when the Batman franchise went to Chris O'Donnell as Robin, I thought Tom Cruise would have been more true to character. Hollywood missed out on that one. O'Donnell, while a good actor, was the worst fit for Robin, but Tom Cruise looks and sounds like the small screen Robin from yesteryear.

 

[MacHipster]

What is interesting about Tom Cruise in this movie is that he does look like Colonel Stauffenberg. In the past when the Batman franchise went to Chris O'Donnell as Robin, I thought Tom Cruise would have been more true to character. Hollywood missed out on that one. O'Donnell, while a good actor, was the worst fit for Robin, but Tom Cruise looks and sounds like the small screen Robin from yesteryear.

So you would have chosen a 33 year old to play Robin? Not only that, but having Cruise team up with Kilmer would have been silly to begin with.

 

[Dmac77]

Now I normally don't like Tom Cruise, but I think he did a decent job in Valkyrie. It could have been better, but all in all, I would say that it is worth seeing in theaters. I'll also echo that Cruise does look surprisingly similar to Stauffenberg.

Don

 

[Melrose]

Have you ever seen a picture of Stauffenberg? He is practically the definition of "pretty boy".

A lot of German guys seem to have the same 'pretty faces' like that. My grandfather had that same type of look about him when he was younger. It's funny how the different nations have their own look, as it were..

I wouldn't have picked Tom Cruise to play Stauffenberg, but I can see how he'd be believable doing so.

 

[Nickygoat]

I know that the Colonel got executed, but did any Generals get charged and convicted in the coup attempt?

Stauffenberg and 3 others were executed by General Friedrich Fromm on the night of the assasination attempt. Fromm had been an unwilling conspirator and executed them to try and cover up his own involvement.

Most of the Generals involved took their own lives as news came through of the failure.

The real hero of the Nazi resistance, Major General Henning von Tresckow, committed suicide by grenade in eastern Poland that night.

Ludwig Beck was forced to commit suicide.

General Stülpnagel, who had arrested senior members of the Gestapo and SS in Paris was forced to release them. He tried to commit suicide outside Verdun, where he had served in the First World War, but was unsuccessful. He was tried and executed.

Helmuth von Moltke, founder of the Kreisau Circle, fount of most of the anti Hitler plots (Kreisau was the Moltke's estate in Prussia) was also executed, despite having been in custody since January 1944. He was executed for association with the Jesuits but was tried in Roland Freisler's People's Courts, along with 200 others who were unfortunate enough to turn up in front of Freisler after the assassination attempt.

Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin also turned up in Freisler's court but the trial was suspended when an Allied air raid hit the court house and Freisler was killed by falling masonry. Kleist was executed in April 1945.

The most interesting case is that of Artur Nebe, the former head of the Kripo. He had become an anti Hitler advocate as early as 1938 but by 1941 was head of Einsatzgruppe B who, by the end of that year, had claimed 45,467 deaths. Einsatzgruppe, in case you didn't know, operated behind the Wehrmacht and SS divisions in what were called "anti-partisan" operations. Genocide to the rest of us. Reports from his group were passed to Army Group Centre HQ at Borisov where most of the conspirators were based. Because of this his role in the anti Hitler movement is usually downplayed.

Nebe faked his own suicide and hid on a farm outside Berlin until he was betrayed by a jealous ex. He was executed in March 1945.

Most of the active coup attempts were by Colonels and downwards rather than what was left of the traditional Prussian officer corps. The generals still felt obligations towards honour and duty, however misguided, that the Colonels didn't.

If the attempt worked and a dissenter such as Rommel took over, hundreds of thousands of allied soldiers, and a million Germans, French, Polish, Jews, and Russians, mostly civilians, would have been spared if there was an armistice by late '44 or early '45. This would have also saved a lot of life in the Pacific theater as the allies could have directed resources against the Empire of Japan six months earlier ending the war before the summer of '45.

Debatable. Stauffenberg and the rest of the conspirators were generally in favour of a negotiated peace with the Western Powers whilst carrying on the war with Russia. They knew that war on two fronts was a disaster for Germany. This, after the Tehran Conference, was never going to happen.

Let me recommend 2 books for you (where most of the above came from):

Michael Burleigh's The Third Reich and,

Ian Kershaw's Nemesis, as well as the precursor volume, Hubris.

 

[SmartIndianKid]

Saw this movie a few days ago, thought it was really good. Plus I just loved the way the German word for Valkyrie rolled off his tongue.