Valkyrie and other Hitler themed movies

I have no plans of sleeping very late last night. However my curiosity in opening that pirated DVD copy of the movie Valkyrie unexpectedly made me wide awake until the wee hours of the morning.

Ah, forget about the not so warm review about the movie but I tell you, it’s a movie worth your money. The story began as Col. Stauffenberg, played by Tom Cruise, wounded in an allied bombing raid in North Africa. He was a frustrated soldier and he believed that the only way to save Germany from further destruction is to eliminate Adolf Hitler.

To make the story short, upon his return to Germany, he conspired with the other like minded Germans, military and civilian, to hatch an elaborate plan to move the army into arresting Hitler’s most loyal men, the SS and the Gestapo, and then seize control of the government. They are going to hijack Hitler’s own Operation Valkyrie, an automatic plan to control the government once Hitler is dead. But the operation had a vital ingredient. Hitler must be killed or the whole operation will not move.

This is where the role of Col. Claus von Stauffenberg comes in as he bravely and on his own carry out the assassination attempt by planting explosives during one of Hitler’s military briefings. Being a high ranking officer of the army, Staffenberg, was one of those regularly invited.

The bomb went off but Hitler was not killed and the coup attempt failed. Col. Claus von Stauffenberg went back to Berlin and prematurely announced that Hitler is dead. This in turn prematurely put into effect Operation Valkyrie. The reserved army moved according to the plan and arrested pro Hitler officers and sympathizers. However, when they got information themselves that Hitler was alive, it immediately realized its mistake and changed sides and arrested the coup plotters themselves.

Col. Staffenberg and the rest of the coup plotters were summarily executed despite express instructions of Hitler to arrest them alive.

One thing that contributed to the failure of its operation was that it was based on a very risky premise which is deceiving the military that Hitler is dead. It was foolhardy and failed to consider all factors.

Anyway, nine months after the coup fizzled out, Hitler’s Germany fell into the Russian hands.

Tom Wilkinson

The movie cast deep bench in cinema. Tom Wilkinson playing the rule of Gen. Friedrich Fromm, the ever loyal commander of the reserved army, Kenneth Branagh as Major General Henning von Tresckow, Bill Nighy as General Friedrich Olbricht, Thomas Kretschmann as Major Otto Ernst Remer, Tom Hollander as Colonel Heinz Brandt, Kevin R. McNally as Dr. Carl Goerdeler, Terence Stamp as Ludwig Beck and David Bamber as Adolf Hitler.

Tom Hollander (far left) and Kenneth Branagh (near right)

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Other Hitler themed movies to watch.( Do I need to still mention Schindler’s List?)

Downfall – as the Russian army is nearing Berlin, it is the inside story of what transpired in Hitler’s last days in his bunker. The movie is based on the narration of Traudl Junge, Hitler’s infamous secretary. The movie was Oscar nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. For me, this is the best Hitler movie I have ever seen. It shows the, pain, and the denial of Hitler and his loyal associates that everything was lost.

Ironically, I was rooting for the Germans in this movie because it showed their humanity and their inside struggle to disagree on Hitler’s policy and conduct of war.

Hitler, the Rise of Evil – the chronological story of Hitler’s slowly but meteoric rise as the most powerful man in Germany. Here it showed Hitler’s hatred of the Jews since childhood and his clever machinations to seize leadership of the party and ultimately the leadership of Germany. I like the way how British actor Robert Carlyle played the role of Hitler, cunning, unstable, maniacal.

The Pianist – a movie about a Polish Pianist, Spielmann, who lost his family in the Holocaust and who was left miraculously alive, through a series of fortunate events, and survived the war. Though not a movie focused on Hitler, it then again exposed the brutality of the Nazis. However, as what has been portrayed in the other movies, not all Germans at that time agreed with Hitler’s policy of exterminating the Jews. Thomas Kretschmann played the role of a compassionate German officer helping the Jewish pianist Spielman, played by Adrienne Brody, survive the war.

Conspiracy – an original HBO movie showing the infamous meeting of trusted Hitler military and civilian officers to map out plans to carry out the “final solution to the Jewish Question.” The movie featured Kenneth Branagh as Reynard Heidrich, and Stanley Tucci as the infamous Adolf Eichmann. It also stars Colin Firth. The movie is based on the only surviving document of one of the participants in the meeting, Foreign Minister Meyer. Perhaps it was providential that one copy was left as it was the instruction of Heidrich that all copies must be burned so as not to leave a trace. It’s a gripping drama inside a boardroom where heated discussions were made until, through intimidation, Heidrich was able to secure a unanimous vote for gas chamber as the method to eliminate the Jews. Notably, two German officials opposed this method, Dr. Kritzinger and Dr. Stockart, a lawyer played by Colin Firth.

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Thomas Kretschmann has appeared most in German army themed movies. He appeared in the Pianist as the conscientious German officer helping the Jew pianist, Spielmann.

Then he also appeared in Downfall, as another high ranking German officer.

And finally in Valkyrie as Major Otto Ernst Remer, commanding officer of the German reserved army who initially follow orders of Col. Stauffenberg but who subsequently defected to the government side after realizing that Hitler was not dead and that Operation Valkyrie was a mistake.

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