In response to the comment that I did not say why I was so damning of the film ‘Valkyrie’, I offer the following.
But as I am not by any stretch of the imagination an expert on Stauffenberg or anti-Nazi resistance generally, let me quote (in my own rather wooden translation) the reaction of two German historians who certainly are experts - Peter Steinbach and Johannes Tuchel. For them, Bryan Singer's 'Valkyrie', seen from a historical perspective, provides a ‘superficial and false image’ of events. Steinbach and Tuchel quote the historical adviser to the filmmakers (presumably Hoffmann) as saying that the film is ‘true’ and ‘accurate’. They cannot understand how, given the historical mistakes in the film, he has come to this opinion. “Was Olbricht really an irresponsible, stiff, paralysed military bureaucrat, did Stauffenberg really throw his glass eye into a glass, did decisive discussions about cutting off communication networks to the Fuehrer’s HQ really take place in a men’s toilet? […] We learn nothing in the film about Stauffenberg’s development from someone who supported National Socialist politics into a critic and, finally, a radical opponent of Hitler. A scene at the beginning, obviously added later, bundles together Stauffenberg’s motives into a fictional diary entry – that’s all we get. […] Among the military conspirators, in the film it is Henning von Tresckow and Mertz von Quirnheim who are prominent. Friedrich Olbricht, really the creator of the Valkyrie plan, is represented as a hesitator. General Erich Fellgiebel almost has to be forced by Stauffenberg into taking part in the conspiracy to overthrow Hitler. One person does the driving, many others are driven – this has nothing to do with the reality of the attempt to overthrow Hitler in summer 1944. The officers who had decided to act did this on their own initiative because they – just like Stauffenberg – no longer wanted to follow the criminal regime. […] When Stauffenberg meets the leaders of the civilian groups involved in the conspiracy and asks them what their objectives are, he doesn’t get any answer in the film. But in reality issues concerning what would happen afterwards had been under discussion since 1938/1939 and largely resolved. It is dishonorable to portray Goerdeler as if he was one of yesterday’s men. These bickering old men, a gentleman’s club, are supposed to have embodied the other Germany?”
Steinbach and Tuchel have more to say, and I agree with every word of it. The film may be accurate in some of its historical detail, and there may be changes which are insignificant or understandable, given the fact that we are dealing with a feature film and not a documentary. But the spirit of the collective nature of the conspiracy simply is not there. And this is why it is a deeply Hollywoodish film. Stauffenberg arrives amongst the dithering other resisters with the individualistic moral bravado of a western hero coming from outside to clean up the town (hence my comparison). It is not that I do not admire Stauffenberg, I do; the courage of the man was remarkable. It is not that there were not resisters who could have done more; there were. But it is the case that I find the film’s focus too obsessively selective. There are several German films – 2 from the 50s, one more recent one – and some German documentaries (one by Joachim Fest) which, while as much a product of their times as ‘Valkyrie’ is of its, portray Stauffenberg in a more complex way, and include the other resisters as equals in the discussions and planning.
I apologise for not backing up my rather throwaway comment about the film’s disastrous inaccuracy. I hope this explains why I think this way. To individualise the history of July 44 to this extent is surely a significant misrepresentation – if not a disastrous inaccuracy.
Tonight, though, I will watch the film again. Perhaps I missed something? And Steinbach and Tuchel too? Their article by the way is
“Kino-Attentat auf Stauffenberg: Widerstand zwecklos“
Von Peter Steinbach und Johannes Tuchel
Der Tagesspiegel vom 20.01.2009
http://www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/kino/Operation-Walkuere;art137,2710077