Somewhat tiresomely for the subject of this interview, we will begin with Tom
Cruise. Right at this moment the bouncy 45-year-old American Scientologist
is trussed up in eye-patch and replica German army officer uniform, circa
1944, in the process of completing his own cinematic tribute to Claus Schenk
Graf von Stauffenberg, the best-known member of the Nazi resistance.
Stauffenberg’s oldest son, Berthold, who turned 73 last month and was 10 when
his father was shot for having tried and failed to assassinate Adolf Hitler
with a bomb in a briefcase, has already spoken out about what he thinks
about Cruise’s decision to direct his interpretive gaze towards his father –
whether or not Cruise practised for the part by parading in uniform in a
suite of the Regent Hotel in Berlin, which he has hired for the duration of
filming. Cruise “should go surfing in the Caribbean”.
Today, when the actor’s name surfaces, the younger Stauffenberg first pauses
for several seconds, then breaks his own silence with a disparaging: “I’ve
heard he is quite small.”
Stauffenberg was, of course, notably tall, not as tall as his firstborn son,
who at over 6ft 3in looms while remaining seated in an armchair, but still
tall, extremely handsome and charismatic even in photographs. One suspects
that the “good Nazi’s” startling looks – he was described by his
contemporary Colonel General Franz Halder as “magnetically attractive” – as
well as his intellectual and social pedigree, his vision and bravery, helped
to draw Cruise to the role. Still, this father’s son is doubtful.
A devout Catholic, he dislikes the thought of his father portrayed by a man
who seems to believe that an alien ruler of a galactic confederacy brought
billions of people to Earth in a spaceship 75 million years ago. “I can’t
imagine it myself. People say that his beliefs should have nothing to do
with it. Would it be acceptable if he was a member of a far-right party?”
Yet there is a strong case for a big-screen adaptation of the events of July
1944, even if the facts are subjected to some Hollywood simplification. Few
periods in history have been so obsessed about, deplored, raked over and
deconstructed as Nazi Germany. But only a minority of the public are aware
of its resistance movement.
Stauffenberg was a 36-year-old army colonel by the time of his death. His name
is fairly well known. But Axel von dem Bussche or Ewald von Kleist? These
men also prepared to risk their lives in separate plots to assassinate
Hitler. It is hoped that an accurate portrayal of the events surrounding the
July Plot – Operation Valkyrie – will, in the words of Florian Henckel von
Donnersmarck, the German director , “do more for the image of Germany than
ten football World Cups.”
The younger Stauffenberg, the eldest in a brood of five, has mixed feelings
about his father. He admires him greatly, but knew him only briefly. And it
must be strange to lose a parent so early on, especially if the parent
posthumously goes on to embody, for an entire country, the only postwar
get-out-clause, the only strand from which a wounded and defensive
population could justify itself. His son says: “Our family policy is not to
speculate publicly on the motives of the resistance,” but draws a parallel
between postNazi Germany and postcommunist Eastern Europe. “It is true now,
and I’m sure it was true then, that most people try to extricate themselves.
You have to find reasons to justify not only others but yourself. That way
the picture becomes more tolerably rosy. It is why people condemned the
resistance – on grounds that the conspirators were breaking an oath and
betraying Germany.”
In 1952 only 20 per cent of the German population approved of the Nazi
resistance. That figure has now increased, according to a survey in 1994, to
around 40 per cent.
It’s not easy to prise from Stauffenberg’s son his thoughts on the matter. As
a teenager he decided to join the German Army – an extravagant ambition at
the time, considering that the German Army no longer existed, but he waited
until it did in 1954. Like his father he rose through the ranks. Like his
father, he joined the cavalry and enjoyed a spectacular military career,
retiring in 1994 with the rank of Generalmajor, Germany’s oldest soldier
after 38 years of service. Yet he denies his father inspired his choice of
career: “I just thought that this was a career that I would enjoy. Fun,
varied.” Where is his own allegiance on the July plot? “I don’t know. I mean
Germany in a way. And I’m a Catholic, which complicates things. What he did
was a very brave thing. He knew the chances of success were slim. It was a
very good thing that happened. Because the truth was that not all Germans
were Nazis. It didn’t suit the Allies at the time because it was contrary to
their propaganda and they played it down.”
The son still has memories of growing up: summer 1943 when his father returned
wounded after his vehicle was strafed by British fighter-bombers in Africa,
his left eye and right hand missing, only three remaining fingers on his
left. The unexpected Christmas visit the same year. After that, he saw his
father only twice: “Once at my grandmother’s funeral and once when he was on
leave in June 1944. Well, of course he was absent. And this was a normal
situation in those days. And then he didn’t come back, of course.”
At the time of his father’s death, the younger Stauffenberg was living in
Bamberg with his mother, a nanny, a maid, three younger siblings and various
members of his mother’s extended family.
He first caught wind of the catastrophe that had befallen his father listening
to the radio on July 20. “I’d heard something on the radio of an attempt on
Hitler’s life that had failed. But no names were given then. But I wanted to
know more. My family tried to keep us from the radio.
“Later my mother broke the news. She said the attempt had been carried out by
my father and that he’d been shot and, of course, we were shocked, we
started crying. There were only two of us, not the younger ones. And we
said, why, why an attempt on the Führer? And my mother said well, he thought
he had to do it for Germany. And I couldn’t understand it.” While his father
had been plotting to kill Hitler with a briefcase containing two small
bombs, his son was pestering his mother to let him to enrol for the Deutches
Jungvolk, a subdivision of the Hitler Youth for the under 14s. “There was a
deadline of June 30 and I born on July 30. You could volunteer. My mother
sabotaged that. She made an agreeement with me that I was growing too fast
and that I was thin. If our doctor said it was OK I could go. He didn’t.
“So when my mother told me what had happened to my father. I couldn’t
understand it. I couldn’t understand my father, anybody, wanting to kill the
Führer because the Führer was – I wouldn’t say he was an idol – but he was
the undisputed head of Germany and I suppose in those days they still
believed in a German victory. And I was a child at the time and I went to
school and there was propaganda everywhere. It shows how the thinking of the
young can be corrupted. People, young people, find it difficult to put
themselves in the situation. What it’s like to live in a dictatorship.
There’s fear everywhere and you can end up in a concentration camp. An
environment where you didn’t dare speak up, where you feared children, your
own children, in case they said something unwise.”
It took years for the younger Stauffenberg to establish the facts
surrounding his father’s death. Now we know that around midday on July 20,
1944, his father entered the briefing room in Albert Speer’s wooden barrack
hut in East Prussia where he was expected for a meeting with Hitler. Having
excused himself from the room, he had time only to arm the first bomb, his
hand injuries made him clumsy. The briefcase was placed under the conference
table and Stauffenberg left the meeting room pretending he had a phone call.
The explosion tore through the hut, but Hitler survived, shielded from the
blast by one of the legs of the heavy oak conference table. When
Stauffenberg arrived in Berlin late in the day, an SS countercoup was
already rounding up most of the conspirators. At about midnight Stauffenberg
and three others were taken to a courtyard at the War Ministry and shot, the
colonel shouting at the last: “Long live our sacred Germany.”
The bodies were buried near by, but on Himmler’s orders the corpses were dug
up and burnt, their ashes scattered over a sewage work. Joseph Goebbels
announced on the radio that an unsuccessful attempt on Hitler’s life had
been made – it must have been the same broadcast overheard by the young
Stauffenberg in Bamberg.
Hitler’s vengeance was swift and savage: 5,000 people are thought to have been
arrested and many were shot or strung up with piano wire. It was Himmler’s
intention to wipe out all of Stauffenberg’s relatives, but most of them
wound up in concentration camps, which they survived. “My mother [pregnant
with her fifth child] was then picked up the following night by the Gestapo
and I didn’t see her until July 1945. And my grandmother was arrested the
night after.”
Stauffenberg himself was sent to an orphanage where his name was changed to
Meister. Until June 1945 when he was reunited with his mother, Stauffenberg
was sealed off from the world “no school, no newspapers, no radio. Mother
was first cross-examined in Berlin then moved to Ravensbruck cell building
for prisoners held for questioning by the Gestapo and there she stayed until
she was due to give birth. She was taken to a clinic and evacuated, taken to
another, had the baby and then had to be evacuated because the Russians.
Under the name of Shank, she was taken to a Catholic hospital in Potsdam
under Gestapo supervision.” Towards the end of the war a village policeman
took her home back to his family.
Where were the Gestapo? “It’s wrong to think the Germans are always well
organised. Some things did go wrong. Her guard went home once he had got her
to write a confirmation that he had done his utmost to fulfil his duty. A
few days later the Americans came. We got home in the middle of June. And
life went on. That was all.”
Still it’s unclear why the family wasn’t executed. Possibly because Nazi
leaders intended to deal with them after a victory that never came. And
possibly because the family’s deep roots and important connections. The
Stauffenbergs are an aristocratic Roman-Catholic family from Swabia. As a
young man, the young Claus and one of his brothers had become followers of
the mystical poet, Stefan George, who a new biography argues, preached that
pederasty was the highest form of existence. Stauffenberg shared with George
a vision of Germany ruled by an aristocratic and intellectual elite. It had
little to do with democracy.
What if his father had lived? The younger Stauffenberg describes himself as a
more committed Catholic than his father and has no time for the mysticism
that surrounded the George set. Did he regret what his father did? “Well, in
a way, of course. It would have been nice to have had a father. But I can’t
say, and nobody else can say, how we might have fared together. There might
have been conflict. Or later we might have had different ideas. He might
have changed too through experience. He was a disciple of George to whom I
have no relationship whatsoever.
“My mother adored my father. He had socialist friends and was probably less
conservative than some of the others. He was not one to put thoughts on
paper. So one can only speculate. I suppose that he also thought that an
intellectual elite should rule Germany.”
The son now lives outside Stuttgart with his wife of 49 years and a dachshund.
A bust of his father sits on a drawing-room table, beneath that several
pictures of his father at home with his children. When it's time to go the
younger Stauffenberg offers us a lift to the station. In his car a tape of
military marching tunes is playing. A couple of hundred miles north one can
imagine Tom Cruise still marching away in his Berlin hotel room.
The historian: It was better that the bomb failed
A number of scenarios might have unfolded if Stauffenberg’s bomb had killed
Hitler on July 20, 1944. One is that the SS and parts of the army would have
put down the coup d’état that was to be triggered by Hitler’s death, and
that Himmler would have taken over the German leadership. This is unlikely.
With Hitler dead, the coup would have had a good chance of success.
What then? The successful plotters would have tried to end the war by reaching
a separate peace with Britain and the US. But a deal with the plotters would
have broken the alliance with the Soviet Union, held together only by the
sole aim of defeating Germany and destroying Nazism. And it would have
placed in power those in Germany, especially in the Wehrmacht, whom many
Allied leaders thought implicated in German aggression. The result could
have been a hot, not cold, war, and maybe an atom bomb directed at Moscow.
It seems unlikely, however, with the war in the Far East still unfinished,
that the Western Allies would have risked war with the Soviet Union.
Probably, they would have resisted the overtures for peace and stuck to the demand
for unconditional surrender. It is doubtful that the plotters would have
acceded to this, at least immediately, given the fear and detestation of the
Russians. So the war in Europe would have continued until Germany’s defeat
or capitulation. This, though, would almost certainly have come much earlier
with Hitler dead. Millions of lives and immense destruction would have been
avoided had Stauffenberg been successful.
What about within Germany? Perversely, the chances of democracy being rapidly
established might have been diminished rather than enhanced by a successful
coup. There would certainly have been a new “stab-in-the-back” legend, of
the sort that had bedevilled German democracy. And the leading figures in
the antiHitler plot, divided among themselves apart from the need to be rid
of Hitler and end the war, were not democrats. Some even wanted to hold on
to Nazi territorial gains. A natural human reaction is to regret
Stauffenberg’s failure to kill Hitler. But it was probably better that
Germany’s defeat was total, and inflicted from outside, so that Germans,
too, could see the full extent of the disaster which Nazism had inflicted
upon their country, and on the world. SIR IAN KERSHAW
Professor Kershaw is author of Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the
World, published by Penquin
The story of Stauffenberg's plot to kill Hitler has been misconstrued and butchered for over 60 years now. It must be realized that his intentions were humanitarian and that he was the leader of the German resistance, replacing Ludwig Beck who was old and in poor health. Olbricht, Tresckow, Schwanenfeld, Stülpnagel and many others along with Stauffenberg, were never Nazi party members as were most members in the military resistance against Hitler.
These men were quite aware of the atrocities committed against the Jews and other minorities and were deeply disturbed by them. They had plans to arrest not only the SS and Nazi party officials once the coup had succeeded, but to liberate the concentration camp prisoners, thereby saving millions of innocent lives.
As early as June 1942, Stauffenberg repeatedly spoke out against the murder of the Jews on the Russian Front and openly spoke about killing Hitler. He believed him to be the Anti-Christ. What a shame for the world that it failed!
Greg McClelland, Atlanta,, Georgia USA
Thank you, Professor Randall Hansen, for the rare combination of knowledge, common sense and humanitarianism in your comment, contrasting to many a comment replacing these three by a frightening amount of hate and prejudice. There is liitle to add, except for the fact that the plotters of 1944 did not start their preparations then but already in 1941 before the aggression against the Soviet Union when there was no obvious sign of Germany losing the war. This plot was not about German power but about German honour and the reerection of the rule of law after having realized the unprecedented criminality of the regime (some of the plotters who joined later were driven by their shocks after having been witness of mass executions in the east). For having to work conspiratively the number of plotters was enormous and included all groups of the (former) political spectrum. It is ridiculous to label them as disguised Nazis (though certainly some were "converts").
Kurt, Berlin, Germany
Kurt, Berlin, Germany
With respect to Jason Silverstein of New York´s comment, there is established evidence that Stauffenberg knew as early as 1941 that Hitler was going to be a disaster for Germany. This is because of the massacres of the Einsatzgruppen-SS of Russian civilians and soldiers during Operation Barbarossa which was an early high point of the German offensive in Russia. He realised that Hitler´s programme would lead to massive resistance in support of Stalin instead of the going over of "enslaved Russians under communism" to the superior German order that had been officially envisaged.
With regard to Rory in Bayreuth, it´s worth pointing out that Stauffenberg started plotting against Hitler from as early as the end of 1941 and more vigorously after his return to Europe from North Africa in 1942 - minus an eye and a hand.
The planning and building up of an anti-Hitler shadow group across Europe and in Berlin within the Wehrmacht was an incredibly slow and dangerous job.
cerronevado, Malaga, Spain
Although I have the greatest respect for Professor Kershaw's work, I find his comments staggering. More people were killed in the last year of the war than in the first 5; the holocaust reached a murderous crescendo; and Germany's once-magnificent cities - Dresden, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Munich, Wuerzburg and many others - were turned to ashes. The failure of the coup also decimated the resistance, leading the the slaughter of thousands of anti-Nazi Germans and forcing the Allies to wage to reinstate and wage the cold war with previously committed National Socialists.
Germany's path to democratization might (emphasis added!) well have been rockier and taken longer than it did in the absence of total defeat, but to suggest that those millions of death were a price worth paying is to view human life as extraordinarily cheap. Surely that should be precisely not the lesson of World War II.
Prof. Randall Hansen, University of Toronto
Author: Fire & Fury: the Allied Bombing of Germany
Prof. Randall Hansen, Toronto, Canada
What a wonderfully informative article - much enjoyed and very illuminating, thank you!
Wilhelm Snyman, Cape Town, South Africa
I've seen photos of Von Stauffenberg and Tom Cruise is a dead ringer for him. Having also seen Tom Cruise in Interview with a Vampire I believe him to be a fine and accomplished actor when he wants to be.
Pete, Waddington, England
This “well intentioned†plan did not quite work out as planned for reasons that are only now becoming clear. Was this not meant to be a short war to restore the standing of Germany in a new world order? As far as everyday Germans were concerned this war had as much to do with the Jewish question as it did with Himmler’s chicken farming efforts in the 1920s.
Nevertheless, it was too late for good deeds. Churchill’s warnings of the 1930s had gone unheeded. The great democracies had failed to act in time. Molotov and Ribbentrop plotted to divide and the rest was history. Or rather, it could be history, if only the Holocaust deniers were told where to go. Who will tell them that the death camps at Bergen Belsen and Auschwitz were real and that people lived in enforced squalor, were gassed, shot and dissected for no reason other their faith?
Sonnenblume, Midwoud, Holland
I agree with Kershaw that it were far better Staufenberg’s bomb failed to kill the Fuhrer.
Had it succeeded and had Himmler and the folks over at Bendlerstrasse managed to retain control of the state (a distinct possibility) Wannsee may have been re-energised and the plight of the Diaspora would have worsened, if one could even imagine a thing so terrible.
By 1944, we know the plotters were increasingly resourceful and confident in their cause. White roses were far too noticeable in grimy bombed out Berlin. “Valkyrie†showed presence of mind. Who would know except the insiders that this was a trap sprung for top dog and not homeland defense?
This “well intentioned†plan did not quite work out as planned for reasons that are only now becoming clear. Was this not meant to be a short war to restore the standing of Germany in a new world order? (Continued....)
Sonnenblume, Midwoud, Holland
Please note, von Stauffenberg was as Swabian, he was not a Prussian. And please reHomerexamine your other clichees.
Homer Adair, Nidderau,
Slightly off message, but it's rather interesting that a devout Catholic should find Scientology's beliefs hard to take.
It doesn't seem too much more feasible that a Middle Eastern woman was made pregnant by a dream and produced a carpenter (by all accounts a nice chap) who was publicly killed, got up three days later and ascended into the sky to be with his father (nowhere to be seen at conception), and still has enough blood and flesh left for it to be consumed by hundreds of millions of people across the planet every Sunday 2,000 years later.
Kevin Browne, Reading, Berkshire, England
Some of you need to read a bit more history.Many of you ask why Staffenberg and the ploters waited until 1944 to strike at Hitler.Truth is they did`nt.One plot took place in February 1943,just after the defeat at Stalingrad.At this time it was far from clear that Germany would be defeated.Hitler was invited to a meeting at Army Group Centre headquaters in Somlensk,Russia.Henning von Treskow( the real hero of the German resistance),Chief of Staff to Army Group Centre,had arranged to have Hitler assinated during his visit.A (British made) bomb was placed on Hitlers plane.Had it gone off all would have been killed.However,although the bomb worked,it failed to detonate due to a faulty firing cap which fail to detonate the bomb itself.Talk about the Devil looking after his own!Perhaps it was destiny at work.Hitler was destined to die at his own hand.Hard thought this was for those who lost their lives because Hitler remained alive,this was probably the better outcome in the long run.
Pat, Notts.,
I always delight reading when evil begins to devour their own loyal followers as happened with the Stauffenberg family. That such a small percentage of Germans even today (40% in 1994) support the German resistance movement helps to explain German support for Saddam Hussein and their virulent anti-Americanism. Such a cultured people-not.
Robert BurnettLL, las Vegas, Nevada usa
Had the coup succeeded Hitler would have died a perceived martyr and the ultimate desolation of Germany might have been blamed on his assassins. Better perhaps that he died miserably by his own hand and is recognised as the evil being he really was and unlikely to be used as a rallying point for a Fourth Reich.
David Cotterell, Cheltenham, UK
I think that the "young" Schaufenberg is not a real supporter of democracy. The fact that he chose the army makes that very clear as it is strange for a young man after the war to make his life work the army especially in Germany. What was he trying to prove? That Germany is a super nation? The fact that the Nazis didn't have much sympathy for cathlics should have opened his eyes, but apparently didn't as the arrogance remained. I cannot understand how any one would join the army after what happened in Germany especially not anyone whose father tried to kill Hitler unless it was for other reasons than getting rid of a mad man but to take over the country not democratically.
Renate Baramy, Ramat Hasharon, Israel
The best account of the uprising and the Byzantine details--Abwehr v/s Gestapo, Canaris v/s Schellenberg, Menzies (MI 5 sic?) with Canaris, against Canaris;Vatican with everyone, against everyone; is given in the dramatic book "Bodyguard of Lies" by Anthony Cave-Brown--out of print for a long time, and now recently reprinted as a paperback and available online... A dramatic, engrossing book about ALL the plots and counterplots in WWII and perhaps the first book with details about the allied operations to read all the enemy codes and ciphers (including Hitler's daily tabletalk!) A must read, and it rings true even if the historians quibble. Cave-Brown quotes Churchill as saying, "In wartime Truth is so precious, she must be guarded by a bodyguard of lies.." [I am quoting from memory, of course Churchill would have made this sound even more grandiloquent!]
Rama, chicago, USA
I am glad this story is being told, Cruise´s background is immaterial. The people who attempted these things were brave and went against the grain. There was hysteria whipped up by Hitler to gain more power, control and unity among his people. Similar to Sept 11 (except we dont BELIEVE that was staged).
While Jenny the jewess is correct in that the assasination of Hitler would not have helped her family, it did help the cause of the Zionists.
alan, Pamplona, Spain
Ago, do some research. The Depression hit Germany hard and they had been humiliated by Versailles. Hitler siezed on the despair of the people. Misleading propaganda let them maintain support. You are right that we must not forgive the guilty parties but we should not condemn a nation.
Ben, York,
Why doesn't Hollywood make a film about Johann Georg Elser, who attempted to blow Hitler up in the "Bürgerbräu in 1939. Elser was a quiet working man without aristocratic connections, but with considerably more sense than von Stauffenburg: Elser wanted to get rid of the Führer before the catastroe started, not when it was almost over.
Homer, Frankfurt, Germany
Yes: The story of the White Rose is inspiring, and humbling, and one that Germany as a whole can be proud of, and celebrate more than it does. These people deserve renown.
Michael, Madrid, Spain
A google search on Wilhelm Canaris will provide more details German resistance to Hitler.
Ian, Mar;borough, wilts
I would like to mention the White Rose Movement: a resistant movement based in Munich. A group of students, led by the Scholl family, set up resistance to the Nazis by writing articles/letters explaining the truth about the Nazis, WW2 and the persecution of the Jews. They sent the letters around the country and distributed them in the university, where one day they were captured, sentenced (without fair trial) and executed a few days later. They were 19, 20 years old but had the courage and intelligence to recognise that a. what was going on was wrong and b to try to change that. There is a film about that too (2005) and watching it makes me feel quite humble.
Alex, Munich,
Siobhan from munich,
Of course not all German's were Nazi, but a majority were. The Government was repressive but had the support, at least initially, of the people. If the Naz'is had woen the war, I can assure you that very few Germans would have had regrets.
You are in denial
Ago Ndubia, Geneva, Switzerland
I am sure you are right. Still the word Nazi can be used to imply that those people were responsible and not the Germans as a whole. Sorry, I cannot accept this.
Michael, madrid, spain
With all due respect to the son and father, Col. Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg was a Prussian junkers and militarist. The Allies were not going to consider making peace with the very same people that collaborated with Hitler while the goings were good. Von Stauffenberg and his fellow conspirators might very well have intended to save Germany from impending destruction, but there is very little historical evidence to support their cause as anything beyond a last ditch attempt to save Germany from the advancing Red Army. Remember, the Army and General Staff were just as accountable as the Nazis for the horrors they unleashed upon Europe and Germany. Moreover, not all Germans were Nazis, but every German knew a Nazi and was complicit in allowing barbarism to rage unchecked. The facts are in and agreed upon, von Stauffenberg, the junkers, the Army, and the people of Germany had intentionally betrayed western civilization.
Jason Silverstein, New York, NY
The coup in 1944 was a bit late in the day. A last minute attempt not to lose face even if they had already lost the war.
The failed attempt in Munich in 1938 that was the one that could have changed everything. Those involved in the 1944 attempt were brave and paid with their lives but it was nevertheless vainglorious.
Clarissa Henry, Vienne, Austria
why did von stauffenberg wait til 1944 to plot to kill hitler? the answer is simple - up til that point in time, it was conceivable that germany could still win the war. The thought of a resurgent Germany whether under hitler or anyone else appealed to many upper-class germans such as the stauffenbegs, the trotts, etc.. - it's only when they realised the war was being lost that they attempted to get rid of him, rather than any sort of political persuasion
rory, bayreuth, DE
It´s also possible that the SS would have covered up the death of Hitler and pretended he was still alive. Hitler made almost no public appearances after 1942 and his radio broadcasts could have been faked. Himmler could have taken over and the majority of Germans led to believe that there was hope, thereby keeping up the sprit of resistance (after all, even as late as February 1945, most German peasants thought Germany was still winning, so effective was the propaganda and censorship of the Reich!).
More important, chief Nazis in the Wehrmacht like General Keitel would not have been told that Hitler was actually dead, only that for security reasons he was not seeing anybody. The Nazis in the Wehrmacht would have been kept morally buoyant by an elaborate and sustained lie. Goebbels was the acknowledged master of propaganda and disinformation of his generation and could have done it very successfully. The war might not have got over any earlier.
cerronevado, Mijas, Spain
Of course there were German victims of the Nazi regime, starting with the ten million murdered in the concentration camps. Add to that all the men wasted on the battlefield by Hitler's insane war of self-aggrandizement, and inescapable conclusion that Htiler was the worst enemy Germany has ever suffered under.
John C. Randolph, Cupertino, , California, USA
Hail to this brave Prussian, who was the personification of courage, dignity and gumption and like Churchill, knew, deep down in his heart of hearts, that Adolf Hitler was Evil Incarnate who would not hesitate to destroy anyone that stood in his way in the fulfillment of his dreams embodied in his Weltanschauung. Germany, reminds us that even a country held in the highest regard as 'das Land der Dichter und Denker' can easily lapse into acts of inhumanity and barbarism when someone like Hitler appears at an opportune moment in history. To Stauffenberg, the Fuhrer was the antithesis of the great and noble in the Germany he so loved, a nation that nurtured Goethe, Schiller, Kant, Beethoven. Truly , Stauffenberg, lived and died in the manner that is best exemplified in the truth of the saying attributed to Burke: "It is necessary only for the good man to do nothing for evil to triumph." Unfortunately, he failed and perhaps, more lives could have been saved had he accomplished his mission.
SD Goh, PJ, Malaysia
Jenny, the coup of the 20th July was one of several tries wich failed. The first ones started before the war.
Sigmar v. Blanckenburg, Bremen, Germany
It would seem that this story of Stauffenberg could only be told by first excoriating Cruise and his Scientology beliefs.
I may not agree with those beliefs of Cruise, but he does not use the film as a vehicle to promote them as some on the left do. It would seem to me that the focus should be on the film and the portrayals it contains.
Stauffenberg is without a doubt one of the most overlooked of the World War II heroes that followed their conscience, not their "duty". Any film that demonstrates his actions and ideals should be worth seeing.
Bob Evans, Anaheim, California
When von Stauffenberg stated "Because the truth was that not all Germans were Nazis. It didn’t suit the Allies at the time because it was contrary to their propaganda and they played it down.†he hits the nail on the head. This fact has not been universally reported because it did not suit the agenda of the Allies then or the wider public now.
There were many Germans who were vehemently opposed to the Nazis. With the country crippled with fear, repression, son against mother, father against daughter, poverty and indoctrination it was difficult for many ordinary Germans to speak out without the fear of deportation or death.
The history of the WW2 is not complete until the history of Germany during this time is truthfully written. There were many German victims too however unpleasant this thought is for some. There were no winners!
Siobhan, munich,
Of course it was also better for Germany that the Stauffenberg-plot failed, but regarding the "stab-in-the-back" legend, it is actually no legend as John Maynard Keynes wrote in his "Two Memoris", published in 1949.
Prof. Dr. Helmut Palm , Magdeburg , Germany
I disagree with Kershaw's view of what was "better". The final year of the war saw the total destruction of East Prussia, millions of soldiers on all sides dead, rabid ethnic cleansing, 17 million refugees driven from their homes, millions of innocent women and children violated, and the establishment of communism across large areas of Central Europe. As Niall Ferguson pointed out, the cold war cost the lives of some 20 million in the developing world in the second half of the 20th century. By the same principle, communism should have been destroyed in an all-out war, "so that" Russians, "too, could see the full extent of the disaster which Communism "had inflicted upon their country, and on the world." Kershaw reflects the views of those who believe that human suffering can readily be traded against political lessons, which is essentially immoral. One feels sympathy for Patton's remark on Germany in 1945 to the effect that we had "thrown a bad lot out to put a worse lot in".
Francis Tuttle, Madrid,
GIVE ME A BREAK! The so-called coup was made half a second before the end of the war! My whole family was already ash in Auschwitz! (My grandmother was murdered in the gas chamber on 11 July 1944, just over a week before the pathetic "coup"! Was it only then that the good" nazis realized what was going on? Or werre they trying to protect their fat backsides at the alst moment?
Jenny, Bnei Brak, Israel
What if his father had lived? He would have, if my maternal grandfather, Adolf Mscichowski, had succeeded in his expedition to kill Hitler in 1943 or early 1944.
Michael Petek, Brighton, UK