Valkyrie
The movie Valkyrie (Walküre in German) is about Operation Valkyrie, which was set into place by German officers and members of the government. The war was turning against Germany and they wanted to kill both Hitler and Himmler. When Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg created the plot against the Nazis he needed signatures of Hitler and General Fromm. Stauffenberg got both to sign the papers without them actually knowing the plot. With the help of Lieutenant Haeften, they created bombs, stuck them in the briefcase, and take them into a meeting where Hitler was present and Himmler wasn’t. On top of having one of the main men in the plot not there, the meeting had been moved to a room that would lessen the impact of the bomb and give everyone a greater chance of survival.
Unsure as if to go through with Valkyrie or not, Stauffenberg called Colonel Mertz von Quirnheim to see what he should do. Although the head orders were not to do it if Himmler wasn’t there, Mertz told him to go ahead and let it off anyway. Stauffenberg left the briefcase and while he was walking down the sidewalk away from the building the room exploded. Haeften and Stauffenberg then got into a car and drove to an airplane to take them back to Berlin, and along the way Haeften threw the bomb-making items out of his briefcase and into the grass.
Part of the plan was to cut all communication lines after Hitler was killed. Back in Berlin there had been no word if he was killed or not, but Stauffenberg assured them that he was since he witnessed the bomb go off. Since it was then believed that Hitler had died in the explosion, the Reserve Army was instructed to take over the Nazi government and arrest them all. While the Reserve Army was working on taking over the Nazis and then the whole city of Berlin, rumors were flying that Hitler had survived. Stauffenberg, seeing the blast and believing it couldn’t be true, said it was just propaganda and that Hitler was in fact dead. Arrest warrants were out for both Stauffenberg and Goebbels, from each other.
When the Reserve Army came in to arrest Goebbels, he put Hitler on the phone so it was living proof that he was alive and they couldn’t take down the Nazi party. With that, the Reserve Army had to retreat and Operation Valkyrie was exposed. The members of the plot were sentenced to death, with one who decided to shoot himself in front of all the others when the verdict came. One by one, they stood in front of soldiers with guns just to be shot at and killed. The entire plot, which took place on July 20, 1944, was the last of 15 known plots to assassinate Hitler. 
I loved this movie! At first it was a little hard to figure out just exactly what they were doing but it didn’t take long to figure it out. Maybe part of that came from Tom Cruise being in the movie, which made it a little less realistic since I’ve seen so many Tom Cruise movies in the past, but once I saw a picture of the actual Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg compared to Tom Cruise I realized there would have been no one better to play the part than Stauffenberg himself. The movie was only 2 hours long, which was a big improvement over Pearl Harbor. It was also more attention grabbing. I also liked that the movie was completely based on conflict in Germany. I guess I fall in that category where I find German history to be the most captivating of any in World War II. My favorite part of the whole entire movie was the very beginning, where they were chanting in German. I love when they talk in the language of the characters they are portraying. If I had to watch the whole movie in German with English subtitles, I definitely would.
The hardest part of the blog was having to go back and find the spelling of character names and match up names with pictures so I knew I was talking about the right person. Don’t get me wrong, I am living proof that Germans usually have complicated last names, but when you put as many characters as Valkyrie in one big pile it’s hard to memorize each face with a name. I did it though! The movie was very well made, great quality, and the actors really played their parts well. I would no doubt recommend it!
“I swear by God this sacred oath: That I shall render unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, Fuhrer of the German Reich and people, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and that I shall at all times be ready, as a brave soldier, to give my life for this oath.”
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