Valkyrie: They Dared To Stop It

Big Hollywood ^ | 1/8/2009 | Assemblyman Chuck DeVore

[GVnana]

Valkyrie: They Dared To Stop It

by Assemblyman Chuck DeVore

Film is power. As with ideas and the words that convey them, film can inform, inspire, and move people to act - for better or for worse. Some films need to be made. Others are better left unmade for the harm they cause. Of course most films fall into neither category, being rather a general waste of time - amusement - as such, true to the Latin root meaning “to stare stupidly.”

Of the films that need to be made, some are made with more ease than others. Schindler’s List, for instance, needed to be made and, while the subject matter was difficult, the story’s focus on the heroic character of Oskar Schindler made director Steven Spielberg’s task agreeable enough. With a powerful and likable cast, Schindler won Spielberg seven Oscars.

Valkyrie is the other sort of film that needed to be made - the one that isn’t so clean and agreeable, depicting real people with real flaws working up enough courage to confront evil in spite of their shortcomings. It is instructive that the film’s tagline is, “Many saw evil. They dared to stop it” rather than the morally satisfying, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Valkyrie follows men, not necessarily good men, who take life as it is dealt to them right up on the screen, drawing in the audience, and inviting those watching to question whether they would have summoned the courage to do the right thing from deep inside the monstrous regime that was Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

[originalbuckeye]

Lots of good history that we didn’t have time to learn in our Leftist schools.

[GVnana]

Probably depends on the date of your education. I remember seeing a documentary about it years and years ago.

These days such lessons would probably violate the holy state of victimhood. /sarcasm.

[GVnana]

Someone wrote on another thread that Deitrich Bonhoffer was part of this conspiracy. Anyone know if that is correct?

[Luke21]

Exactly. The Nazis continued to deflect needed resources to the death camps until the end. The deaths of Jews and the carrying out of the “final solution” was always paramount.

If the assassination had been successful, much of the civilian suffering on the eastern front might have been spared. The Russians raped and plundered, and might have done so anyway. But German boys probably would not have been enlisted at the end.

The conspirators were strangled with piano wire, by the way. And Hitler supposedly watched films of their deaths again and again. He was absolutely nuts.

[dschapin]

I watched the movie and found it very good and inspiring. These men were far from perfect but they were willing to lose their lives in order to try to stop Hitler. Incidentally, I thought Tom Cruise did a good job in this film - in which he only plays one character among many.

[Barnacle]

I saw the movie last night. I walked in expecting it was a 2.5 star movie. I walked out rating it 3.5 stars.

I never know about a movie until I sleep on it. I woke up giving it 4 stars.

[wolf78]

Actually, I think it was best that Hitler lived. He was so screwed up and surrounded by such sycophants that he was an assistance to Allied victory.

Which is almost literally quoting Henning von Tresckow ("Die Alliierten müssen schon mit dem Dummbeutel geschlagen sein, wenn sie nicht erkannt haben, dass Deutschlands Militär ohne Hitler stärker ist, als mit" - The allies must have been hit with the stupid stick if they haven't realized that the German army is stronger without Hitler.).

With Hitler gone, the German high command would of been some what more militarily rationalized and more efficient.

That late in the war the German military WANTED to surrender to the Western allies, i.e. the UK and the US, and pull a France / Italy themselves: Namely helping the US stop Russia from taking over Eastern Europe (i.e. keeping its borders intact plus still having a buffer to the east).

I don't think by the late date of the attempt, we would of made a deal with the Nazis.

As a result, Poland was sacrificed to Russia, one of the two countries that invaded it in the first place: Just compare Poland's eastern border with the Ribbentrop-Molotov line. The conclusion is simple: Stalin got away with it.

Well, the hardcore Nazis wouldn't have wanted to deal anyway, but the Wehrmacht wasn't as stupid.

[csmusaret]

When I read the headline I thought (hoped) that they had finally stopped the endless commercials for this movie.

[hoagy62]

According to Wikipedia, he did have connections with the July 20th conspirators. It was this that led to his execution. However, he was also imprisoned earlier for providing finances for Jews to escape to Switzerland.

(Again, this is from Wikipedia, so please take this with a grain of salt.)

[GVnana]

he was also imprisoned earlier for providing finances for Jews to escape to Switzerland.

Thanks for the info. I knew about his assistance to the Jews. Bonhoffer is, of course, a great inspirational figure.

[Radix]

"This is a good movie. After discussing it with some people at work, we all were wondering why we weren’t taught in our History classes that there WERE people who tried to overthrow Hitler. Anyone?"

 

 

I did a paper in the 10th grade on "the struggle for Europe."    My paper was mostly about "the Putsch" which was a subject of that book. (The 20 July 1944 assassination attempt.)    I got an A on that paper. It was my first ever term paper.

 

I think that I'll skip this movie until it shows up on HBO.

[Leisler]

"Wehrmacht wasn't as stupid. "

The history of the first half of the 20th century refutes this.

[dfwgator]

I don't think by the late date of the attempt, we would of made a deal with the Nazis.

We had already agreed on "Unconditional Surrender". The plotters against Hitler wanted to continue the war against the Soviets.

[dfwgator]

What would the Wehrmacht done with the SS? I think Germany faced certain civil war if Hitler was assassinated.

[Stonewall Jackson]

There was a good book that came out a few years ago, “Fox on the Rhine”, in which the assassination is successful, but Himmler escapes the attempt on his life and assumes command of Germany. He has the ringleaders rounded up and shot and then confronts Rommel and other senior officers with evidence of their complicity in the plot. He then tells them that he is willing to let bygones be bygones, so long as they follow his lead. A peace treaty is then signed with Stalin, giving the Soviets control of most of Eastern Europe, and then the bulk of the German military is concentrated against the Americans and British under the Command of Field Marshal Rommel.

[Leisler]

American soldier at the beginning of WWII remarked that they were finishing their fathers war, WWI, which had an armistice. Kind of how GW had to finish his fathers Gulf War One.

Even the elites learn, eventually, the delusions of diplomacy.

Other than total surrender to all the allies, that was the only option and that was not acceptable to the Hitler plotters and the German elite.

[wolf78]

What would the Wehrmacht done with the SS? I think Germany faced certain civil war if Hitler was assassinated.

By 1944 the war was lost and the SS could expect little support among a population that was already preparing for what would come after the war (suddenly Adolf wasn't a popular boy's name anymore). They would've fought, but against a government in control of the state and the Wehrmacht they would have lost. I think the hardest part was / would have been to actually establish control of the government, e.g. for Goerdeler to actually assume the role of chancellor, you'd also have to get rid of Goebbels and so forth.

[wolf78]

The thing is: Germany never fought a war of extermination against the Western allies they way it did against Russia. Paris still looks a lot like it looked during the 1920s. Compare that to the Siege of Leningrad.

The other way round it’s much more probable.

[Arizona Carolyn]

Did you see the movie or is this kneejerk reaction? It was actually an exellent movie and you clearly saw how this would have worked, even if Hitler had not been killed, if only people in Berlin had not frozen.

[dfwgator]

Paris still looks a lot like it looked during the 1920s.

It almost was destroyed, but Hitler's orders were disobeyed.