Posted on 12/26/2008 4:27:13 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
The White Rose was just one group, unconnected from the Stauffenberg conspirators, and other dissidents like Bonhoeffer and the von Moltke clique.
When the Gestapo rounded up all the various groups the total of victims liquidated was in the hundreds.
Ditto for my lady and myself as well! Yes, it did seem strange at first for Cruise and the other actors to not use phony German accents, but it was one less distraction from the dialogue. Which, by the way, is darned soft. I recommend sitting in the front half of the theater, and being prepared to cover your ears during the relatively few loud scenes.
Isn’t the resemblence erie? I saw a bust of von Stauffenberg and from the front it is just as strong as the side view.
After watching Longest Day again yesterday, I am one of those strange people who likes hearing these things in English, it is very distracting to have to read subtitles or concentrate on an accent to understand dialog.
You’re not the exception. American movie-going audiences overwhelmingly prefer dubbed movies to subtitles.
That was the primary objective reason Hollywood offered in refusing to distribute Gibson’s “The Passion.”
“
All German soldiers were not NAZI’s. Many German soldiers fought for
the same reason most soldiers fight; for the man on his right and
on his left.
“
IIRC there was some fellow that did his dissertation on German
Army soldiers that would not have passed the racial purity test if
really scrutinized.
In other words, German Army soldiers of at least some sort of Jewish heritage.
And I think this story got at least a substantial segment on NBC DateLine.
With some of his mentors (or “thesis advisors”) telling him they
thought he’d not find any such thing.
What was truly interesting was the researcher’s finding that even
when the officers knew (or had reasonable suspicion) of their
subordinates “Non-Aryan problem”, they generally provided the soldiers
cover and did what they could to keep them in their command.
There were a bunch of confused people in Germany during WWII.
Including the ones that pushed to the East and found Jews that rode
horses and shot well...the Nazis (especially Himmeler’s Anhenerbe)
didn’t know what to make of those folks!
I haven’t seen the movie yet but I’m well-versed on the real history of this plot. It failed due to bad luck. Stauffenberg placed the bomb perfectly — it was in a briefcase and he was trusted well enough to get right next to Hitler. But after he left the room, somebody moved his briefcase.
The uniforms? Friedman knows nothing about the way German soldiers actually dressed. He’s a faggot. He’s used to seeing other faggots dressed up as Nazis. I have seen the TV ads and the trailer, and those uniforms are accurate.
Yes, that is the picture I was talking about. Thank you.
I guess I’m an exception, cause my roommate and I don’t like seeing or renting a foreign movie that’s been dubbed over in English, and if historical movies are made in the original language, we prefer that too. The two exceptions were Night Watch and Day Watch, cause she really disliked Russian, the subtitles were sloppy, and the actors who did the English track at least had Russian accents...
It's hard to imagine that an offer of surrender would not have been seriously considered. The Soviets, of course, could ignore public opinion but the western powers would have had to sell a continuing war to the public.
In July 1944 the US/UK forces were still in Normandy and the Soviets were just capturing Minsk. I have to think we would have only kept fighting to keep the Soviets as far from western Europe as possible.
Roosevelt and Churchill would have demanded evacuation of Czechoslovakia and Poland, for instance. As in World War I, the Germans would have been unable to accept an initial peace without completely losing their ability to resume hostilities if, for instance, the Soviets found the Germans to be in violation of its terms.
The conspirators were operating on the deluded hope of desperation.
Tell that to the families of those who were hung from piano wires. P.S. The film didn't mention the fact that Rommel was forced to commit suicide due to his knowledge of the plot.
Make that a minority of two. I saw it this afternoon with my wife and we both really enjoyed it. The story was excellent. It had a host of good acting performances (Cruise included) and it drew you in even though the ending was obvious. There are so few movies that even get us into the theatre anymore that are actually worth the price of admission. This was one of them.
Sorry Mr Critic, this was a darn good movie. My gut tells me that if this movie was made by another actor like Clooney or Penn, who was not considered a whack job, that it would be getting rave reviews.
(the showing we went to, 4:15 on Friday afternoon, was almost full by the way)
Of course. The west could not allow status quo ante bellum. I imagine that a retreat to Versailles treaty borders and turning over the Nazi leadership probably would have done the trick.
Those terms might have been acceptable to the American people, but, even if the conspirators had accepted them, the net result would only have been to move the Russian front 500 miles closer to Berlin. As in 1918, the Wehrmacht would have melted away or mutinied, as the unanswerable question would have once again been presented: who wants to be the last man to die in a war already lost?
“It looks like I’m a minority of one here.”
Thanks for the Minority Report.
:o)
It looks good, I’ll go see it this weekend.
If I'm not mistaken, veterans of the Afrika Korps and the British 8th Army have had joint reunions over the years. I do know Adolf Galland of the Luftwaffe became very close friends with many of the British flyers he opposed during the Battle of Britain (even becoming friends with Douglas Bader during the war...allowing an artificial leg to be dropped into his POW camp).
I do remember a 40 year reunion of the American troops meeting with the Waffen SS soldiers they opposed at Point du Hoc....they didn't seem to like each other at all, looked like they'd still shoot at each other.
What I never believed would happen is that there's been some Japanese soldiers and American Marines who've met each other in Iwo Jima and Okinawa commemorations. If you remember the hatred in which they held each other, you'd be astonished to see these men embrace each other (even after 60 years)...I seriously doubt there'd be a Stalingrad reunion between Red Army soldiers and von Paulus's 6th Army.
As a side note, a seminary professor here in Jackson was trained to be a Kamikaze pilot at the end of WW II (I told him once he must not been very good at it if I'm still talking to him). Dr. Toshiro was only 13, but he was going to bomb ships when the Americans invaded the mainland. When the U.S. dropped the A-bombs and the Japs surrendered, it left his life in a void. He came to Christ in a revival meeting held by some American missionary, and he later became an American citizen and pastored a church in Kentucky for 20 years (his son fought in the Gulf War). After hearing him give his testimony one night, an old Navy veteran came up to him and hugged him, saying he never thought he'd embrace a veteran of the Japanese Army, but that Christ has brought us all together.
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