Valkyrie: The Plot to Kill Hitler (2008)

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Director:

Kevin Burns

Writer:

Kevin Burns

Stars:

Robert Clotworthy, Christopher McQuarrie, Jens Jessen

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Robert Clotworthy	...	Narrator (voice)
Christopher McQuarrie	...	Himself
Jens Jessen	...	Himself
Ulrich Wickert	...	Himself
Ekkehard Klausa	...	Himself (as Dr. Ekkehard Klausa)
Johannes Tuchel	...	Himself (as Dr. Johannes Tuchel)
Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager	...	Himself (as Philip Baron Von Boeselager)
George Weidenfeld	...	Himself
Gerhard Weinberg	...	Himself
Richard Evans	...	Himself
Peter Hoffmann	...	Himself (as Prof. Dr. Peter Hoffman)
Matthias Graf von Kielmansegg	...	Himself
Rudiger Von Voss	...	Himself (as Rüdiger von Voss)
Robert J. Hanyok	...	Himself
Henry Kissinger	...	Himself

Storyline

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Plot Keywords:

world war two | plot to kill hitler | nazi | conspiracy | 

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Genres:

Documentary

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Details

Official Sites:

History Channel

Country:

USA

Language:

English German

Release Date:

24 November 2008 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Valkyrie Legacy

Filming Locations:

California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Bad Hat Harry Productions,Prometheus Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

115 min (Blu-ray)

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Did You Know?

Connections

Features Valkyrie (2008)

User Reviews

A not bad, ambitious documentary despite being a shameless tie-in

This program is a shameless tie-in to the 2008 Tom Cruise movie "Valkyrie," but as shameless tie-ins go, it is pretty good. It retells much, much more than its title suggests and goes far beyond the story told in the Cruise movie. It begins with the rise of Hitler, then goes into the development of the German resistance to Hitler (it was fractious because the movement consisted of socialists, aristocrats and Christian pacifists who didn't agree how to proceed against Hitler let alone what kind of Germany they wanted to have post-Hitler), then describes how the resistance came to focus on a series of assassination plots and how Claus Von Stauffenberg came to be involved in the "July 20th Plot." But there's more! This two-hour program pretty much wraps up the rise and fall of Operation Valkyrie in one hour or so, but goes on to explore not only its immediate aftermath but also the changing regard of the German people for this event and the people involved in it. Stauffenberg's own son recalls that in the late 1940s—well after the war—a teacher said disapprovingly of him something like, "What can you expect from the son of a traitor." (The talking heads include not only historians and public figures—Henry Kissinger chimes in once with a cogent point—but also family members of the conspirators.) But by the early 1950s, many Germans began to rehabilitate the July 20th plotters, and the place of Stauffenberg's execution became a permanent memorial. This documentary chronicles, down to the present, the German people's attempts to regain self-respect after the disaster of the Hitler era and the division and reunification of East and West Germany. It makes the case that the re-visioning of the July 20th plot has been an important tool that has helped Germans to remember that not all Germans joined in Hitler's orgy of inhumanity.