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The Plot to Assassinate Hitler

Original title: Der 20. Juli
  • 19551955
  • 1h 37m
IMDb RATING
6.9/10
166
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
95,061
4,850
Wolfgang Preiss and Falk Harnack in The Plot to Assassinate Hitler (1955)
DramaHistoryThriller
A disillusioned Wehrmacht officer named Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944.A disillusioned Wehrmacht officer named Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944.A disillusioned Wehrmacht officer named Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944.
IMDb RATING
6.9/10
166
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
95,061
4,850
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Director
      • Falk Harnack
    • Writers
      • Falk Harnack
      • Werner Jörg Lüddecke
      • Günther Weisenborn
    • Stars
      • Wolfgang Preiss
      • Annemarie Düringer
      • Robert Freitag
    Top credits
    • Director
      • Falk Harnack
    • Writers
      • Falk Harnack
      • Werner Jörg Lüddecke
      • Günther Weisenborn
    • Stars
      • Wolfgang Preiss
      • Annemarie Düringer
      • Robert Freitag
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 3User reviews
    • 1Critic review
  • See production, box office & company info
    • Awards
      • 3 wins & 1 nomination

    Photos6

    Wolfgang Preiss and Annemarie Düringer in The Plot to Assassinate Hitler (1955)
    Wolfgang Preiss and Annemarie Düringer in The Plot to Assassinate Hitler (1955)
    The Plot to Assassinate Hitler (1955)
    Wolfgang Preiss in The Plot to Assassinate Hitler (1955)
    The Plot to Assassinate Hitler (1955)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Wolfgang Preiss
    Wolfgang Preiss
    • Oberst Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg
    Annemarie Düringer
    Annemarie Düringer
    • Hildegard Klee - Sekretärin im OKW
    Robert Freitag
    Robert Freitag
    • Hauptmann Lindner
    Fritz Tillmann
    • General Henning von Tresckow
    Werner Hinz
    Werner Hinz
    • Generaloberst a.D. Ludwig Beck
    Peter Esser
    • Generalfeldmarschall Erwin von Witzleben
    Wolfgang Büttner
    • Gen. Friedrich Olbricht
    Hans Zesch-Ballot
    • Generlleutnant Erich Hoepner
    Karl Klüsner
    • General der Nachrichtentruppen Erich Fellgiebel
    Herbert Wilk
    • Oberst Albrecht Ritter Merz von Quirnheim
    Ernst Lothar
    • Oberleutnant Werner von Haeften, Stauffenbers Adjutant
    Heinz Giese
    • Oberleutnant - Ordonnanz bei von Tresckow
    Paul Bildt
    Paul Bildt
    • Oberbürgermeister a.D. Dr. Carl Friedrich Goerdeler
    Maximilian Schell
    Maximilian Schell
    • Mitglied des Kreisauer Kreises
    Erich Schellow
    Erich Schellow
    • Evangelischer Pfarrer…
    Ernst Stahl-Nachbaur
    • Feldmarschall, Oberfehlshaber einer Heeresgruppe
    Georg Gütlich
    • Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel
    Siegfried Schürenberg
    • Generaloberst Friedrich Fromm
    • Director
      • Falk Harnack
    • Writers
      • Falk Harnack
      • Werner Jörg Lüddecke
      • Günther Weisenborn
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Final film of actress Charlotte Ander ,
    • Goofs
      Wounded in action previously, Stauffenberg lost his left eye. In the film, the actor playing Stauffenberg, wears an eye-patch covering the right eye.
    • Connections
      Featured in Was geschah wirklich am 20. Juli 1944? (2004)

    User reviews3

    Review
    Review
    Top review
    Impressive portrayal of the events around the most famous attempt to assassinate Hitler
    (Version reviewed is the 95-minute showing on ARD on July 24, 2001. There seems to be a scene excluded with Hildegard and Cpt. Lindner telling the story as a flashback. Film has no credits at all.)

    Dr. Harnack, once a resistance member himself, shot a fabulous, never boring picture, eleven years after the attempted assassination of German "Führer" Adolf Hitler. Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg (Wolfgang Preiss in an appropriate rôle), a leading member of the secret regime resistance group around Goerdeler and Beck (played by veteran actors Paul Bildt and Werner Hinz), decides to kill Hitler soon after his installment as chief of staff of Eastern replacement troops. After a first try has failed - General von Tresckow says: "That guy (Hitler) has even chance on his side" - , Stauffenberg himself places a time bomb in Hitler's headquarters in Eastern Prussia. Then follows a minute description of the main events of the rest of the day, July 20, 1944.

    Authors Weisenborn, Lüddecke and Harnack extended the depiction of events to a preacher and a civilian resistance group in Berlin. The frequent change of perspectives, though, was an unfortunate choice.

    Another plot is about two fictitious characters, Hildegard Klee (Annemarie Düringer) and Captain Lindner (Robert Freytag), who is a dedicated Nazi officer. When both watch how an innocent Jewish doctor is brutally arrested, the officer states: "These are excesses only. But the front isn't part of it. The front is clean!" - "But you're fighting for it!" Hildegard answers. - It's supposed to make clear why German resistance consisted of (aristocratic) officers to a large extent. - Lindner is finally convinced when he reports about witnessing the killing of women and children when he is back at war again.

    Although there have been controversies among historians about the (would-be) assassins' motives, and research has been done for over forty years since, the film is still a fine history lesson. There is an indication of the different aims in one scene when socialists and monarchists quarrel at a secret meeting until a philosophical Maximilian Schell settles the conflict. The narrator later declares that the July 20 action was "about the destruction of illegitimate tyranny and about the honor of the German name."

    In consequence, when Stauffenberg ponders over what he is resolved to do, Harnack lets him view scenes of bomb attacks, tanks approaching and soldiers wounded before his mind's eye (all archive material), but there is only a very short take of what might be a KZ barbed wire fence: the fate of millions of Jews appears not to have been a motive.

    Although very well done, "Der 20. Juli" is not a stand-out cinematographically. It was produced in competition with G. W. Pabst's "Es geschah am 20. Juli", which premiered a trifle earlier. Of the actors, Ernst Schröder is very efficient as the relentless hunter of resistant fighters, credible and far away from the caricatures in some American and British war movies. Likewise, Düringer, Freytag and Preiss do fine jobs.
    helpful•10
    2
    • frank_olthoff
    • Jul 24, 2001

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • June 21, 1955 (West Germany)
    • Country of origin
      • West Germany
    • Languages
      • German
      • French
    • Also known as
      • Der 20. Juli
    • Production company
      • Central Cinema Company Film (CCC)
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 37 minutes
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Sound mix
      • Mono
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.37 : 1

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