Failed Hitler Assassination Attempt ~ July 20, 1944

The 20 July plot of 1944, led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, was a failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany, inside his "Wolf's Lair" field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia. The plot was the culmination of the efforts of the German Resistance to overthrow the Nazi regime. The failure of both the assassination and the military coup d'état which was planned to follow it led to the arrest of at least 7,000 people by the Gestapo. According to records of the Führer Conferences on Naval Affairs, 4,980 people were executed, resulting in the destruction of the resistance movement in Germany.

Photo & Text:wikipedia.com

Tom Cruise was in an intriguing --if somewhat accent-flawed-- film on the the subject, entitled Valkyrie released five years ago. (See my post on December 26, 2008 for my review of the movie.)

VALKYRIE

My good friend LyleRichardson was not feeling well, and... we decided to take a rain check on our Boxing Day engagement.

So I went to see the new Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie about the miscarried assassination attempt against Adolf Hitler, on 20 July 1944. (My first partner Gary Murakami was born a year later on 20 July 1945, about two weeks before Hiroshima.)

The film is quite good, and fairly accurate from what I could tell. It was fascinating to see the reconstruction of the Berghof.

At the very end of the movie as they described the fates of various principals, I was startled to learn that the wife of Claus von Stauffenberg, Elisabeth Magdalena (Nina) Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg, survived the war and died on 2 April 2006... the same day as Dennis! She was 92, he, only 55.

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Three years ago today-- Boxing Day, December 26, 2005-- Dennis and I went to another movie, Heath Ledger's Casanova, filmed just before or after Brokeback Mountain, and released about the same time. I thought that was to protect his image. We went to see it primarily because it was filmed in Venice. It was the last movie Dennis saw in a theatre and it was only a few weeks before we left for Carnevale in Venezia. Dennis unfortunately bit down on an uncracked popcorn kernel and broke a tooth.

After seeing Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker in his final film, the Batman movie The Dark Knight, I'm convinced that the role contributed to his early death. He got into the part so deeply that it affected him psychologically with terrible consequences. Because of that it's difficult for me to watch him in the film.

Bronze bust of Claus von Stauffenberg:wikimedia/wikipedia.org