Operation Valkyrie (original title: Stauffenberg) is a 2004 German war TV film directed by Jo Bauer.
It depicts Operation Valkyrie, the failed assassination attempt against Adolf Hitler in July 1944. Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Sebastian Koch), a young officer who was once a loyal believer of Hitler but, over the years, became increasingly disenchanted with Nazi Germany. He is approached by Henning von Tresckow (Ulrich Tukur), an army officer and dedicated member of the anti-Hitler resistance. Stauffenberg is badly wounded fighting in North Africa, losing an eye and a hand. After returning to Germany, Stauffenberg joins the assassination plot, becoming its leader. On July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg leaves a bomb which goes off in a conference room in Hitler's command post in East Prussia. Stauffenberg rushes back to Germany to coordinate the military takeover of the state. But Hitler isn't dead...
See also the English-language theatrical version of these events, Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise as Stauffenberg.
Tropes:
- And Starring: Olli Dittrich, who appears in one scene as Goebbels, gets an "and in the role of Goebbels" credit.
- Artistic License – History: In Real Life Stauffenberg lost the last two fingers of his left hand in the strafing attack that also cost him his right hand and left eye. This film evidently couldn't figure out how to hide two of Sebastian Koch's fingers, so after he is wounded he is shown with his ring and pinky fingers permanently curled inward.
- Demoted to Extra: Making the film only 90 minutes long and focusing exclusively on Stauffenberg results in other members of the Valkyrie plot getting almost no characterization at all, other than a little for Tresckow.
- Right before he kills himself, Tresckow bids goodbye to a guy he addresses only as "Schlabrendorff." This is Fabian von Schalbrendorff, one of the only conspirators to survive these events, who unbelievably won an acquittal before the Volksgerichthof Kangaroo Court and then somehow avoided execution in the concentration camps before the end of the war.note
- Distant Prologue: After the How We Got Here opening there are brief scenes showing Stauffenberg in 1933 (he's excited to get a glimpse of Hitler) and in 1939 (he's fighting in Poland and doesn't think much of Jews) before the story proper starts in 1943.
- Doomed Moral Victor: The assassination and coup were poorly planned and even more poorly executed, and as a result it is clear within a few hours that the plotters have failed. But Stauffenberg says to an aide right before he is arrested that he had hoped to build a better Germany, a free Germany, a nation that believed in "human rights and justice."
- Driven to Suicide: Tresckow, who had been sent to active duty on the Eastern Front and thus was not there in Berlin to be arrested, kills himself with a grenade before the Gestapo can get to him.
- Empathy Doll Shot: Tresckow introduces Stauffenberg to a shell-shocked woman who recounts how her entire village including her son were murdered by the Germans. Then the woman pulls out a stuffed rabbit that presumably belonged to her boy.
- Historical Downgrade: Stauffenberg is sometimes portrayed as an idealistic saint, like how Tom Cruise played him in Valkyrie. This movie points out, entirely correctly, that Stauffenberg was an enthusiastic believer in Hitler when he took power in 1933. This film also includes some of the unfortunate remarks that Stauffenberg wrote to his wife from 1939 in Poland, like how he described the population as a "riffraff" of "Jews and mixed races", and how he told his wife that Polish prisoners could work German farms.
- How We Got Here: Begins with the ending, namely, Stauffenberg being executed in the courtyard of the Bendlerblock, the night of the failed coup.
- Leave Behind a Pistol: As in Real Life, General Beck asks for a pistol to shoot himself, but only wounds himself and has to be finished off by an officer.
- Mononymous Biopic Title: The original German title. Although it isn't really a biopic, as barely 20 minutes of movie go by before we get to 1943 and the start of the plot that became Valkyrie.
- New Meat: Stauffenberg is sitting in his command post, a truck, in North Africa. A very green officer, Lt. Farber, shows up to report for duty. They have been talking for less than a minute when enemy planes swoop down and strafe the area. Farber is killed.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: An enraged Field Marshal von Witzelben, one of the most senior officers involved in the plot, points out to Stauffenberg that he and his gang have fucked everything up. Hitler isn't dead, they didn't take the radio station or seize control of communications, they haven't taken control of the government district, and the officer in the field that they're counting on, Major Remer of the Replacement Army, just happens to be a hardcore Nazi. Then Witzelben stalks out of the room.
- Trashcan Bonfire: In this case the trashcan bonfire is by the conspirators, who are frantically trying to burn incriminating documents as Hitler loyalists burst in to arrest them.
