This sunday I watched the movie Valkyrie. Though I can't count myself asa Tom Cruise fan, I can say that this movie portrayed well Project: Valkyrie.
Basically, at the peak of WWII, fellow Germans, Hitler's followers, come upon the realization that they must save Germany from the "fuhrer"; they must retake control of their country. It is because of this need that a plan is hatched. This plan is called, as I said above, Project: Valkyrie. They wish to take down their leader and all of his followers to make Germany a better country. A plan is born during a bombing of Berlin.
These Generals face treason and their own faults in their plan to assassinate Hitler.
Every movie must have a leading man, and here it is Tom Cruise as Colonol Claus Von Streuffenburg, complete with an eyepatch and singlehand and everything. The loyal solider reaches his breaking point as he witnesses the horrors that his country has unleashed on the world, and the injuries he has sustained in the air raid in Tunisia. He goes from a position in the Reich, to a position in the opposition.
He and other loyal soliders come together to draft an intricate plan to destroy the Nazi regime from inside using the deployment of the reserve army, after Hitler's assassination. They make a plan to convey Hitler's assasination as an effort of the SS, to slowly break sown the Nazi regime and convince the people that the SS was to blame. This plan required authorization from a higher rank, but Due to the decline of involement to the top man who can initiate the redraft of the plans of the reserve army, Streuffenburg must go to Hitler himself, who praises him for his bravery, and sign the papers to the demise of his military. Oh, irony :)
Streuffenburg is then ordered to assassinate Hitler himself,and SS leader Himmler at his bunker, Wolf's Lair.
So, Steuffenburg walks into a confrence with a bomb in his breifcase, in an attempt to kill Himmler. He's not there. Jeez. Good thing they didn't have any security checks back then.
He later places a bomb as near to Hitler as possible and leaves, hoping the bomb will detonate and kill Hitler. The reserve army is deployed, though aaaurance ofHitler's death is not confirmed, and several Nazi officers arrested. However, it is found out that Hitler survived the blast, and their plan had been for nothing. Each conspiring officer is killed, by firing squad, including Streuffenburg, who declares, "Long Live Sacred Germany!". Very much like the Ending of crucible, I thought.
In the epilouge it states that this was the last of 15 attempts on Hitler's life, and he comminted sucide 9 months later.
All together, it was a good movie, and really informative, coming from a veiw I've never heard before. It was a little hard to follow, but that may be due to the company I watched it in. Intense, and as always Mr. Bruns, Educational :)
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