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Rent Valkyrie on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

What to Know

Given the subject matter, Valkyrie could have been an outstanding historical thriller, but settles for being a mildly entertaining, but disposable yarn.

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Bryan Singer

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg

Kenneth Branagh

Henning von Tresckow

Friedrich Olbricht

Tom Wilkinson

Friedrich Fromm

Carice van Houten

Nina von Stauffenberg

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Valkyrie true story: the july 20 plot to kill hitler explained.

The Tom Cruise historical drama Valkyrie tells the tale of the 20 July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, and the movie adheres closely to reality.

The 2008 Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie is a historical period piece about the 20 July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Cruise has a unique filmography for one of the world's biggest movie stars. He has rarely played a real-life figure, as nearly all of his roles have been original creations. One of the few times Cruise portrayed someone from history came in Valkyrie, written by his frequent collaborator Christopher McQuarrie. In Valkyrie, Cruise plays Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, a high-ranking member of the Nazi military apparatus and the chief architect of the 20 July plot.

Von Stauffenberg's growing resentment of Adolf Hitler and the clandestine machinations that went into pulling off the ploy serves as the historical basis for Valkyrie . Tom Cruise is the hero in a villainous regime as von Stauffenberg, and the movie, for the most part, tracks the events leading up to July 20, 1944. The ensemble cast plays out the conspiracy of German military and political officials who plotted to assassinate Hitler and nearly succeeded. Real life can be as cinematic as fiction as the 20 July plot shows in sits depiction in Valkyrie .

Related: Top Gun Maverick – 10 Most Rewatchable Tom Cruise Movies

Colonel Claus Schenk Graf Von Stauffenberg

The figure of Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg was always going to be a fascinating and suitable role for any leading man in Hollywood. Von Stauffenberg was a highly decorated military leader for Germany during World War II whose bravery and charisma led to him becoming the de facto leader of the conspiracy to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Christopher McQuarrie writes a classic Tom Cruise opening scene in Valkyrie with a desert battle in Northern Africa taken straight from von Stauffenberg's life. While fighting in Tunisia, von Stauffenberg was shot at by an allied aircraft and lost his eye, one hand, and two fingers on the remaining one.

By 1944, some members of the German high command thought the only way to salvage something from defeat was by ridding the country of Hitler while others had reached a tipping point of their morality, according to Time . Von Stauffenberg was an ardent German patriot but had no ties to the Nazi party. As von Stauffenberg, Cruise has an uncanny resemblance to the colonel that helps immerse the audience in Valkyrie . It's one of Tom Cruise's most dramatic movie roles , and his ability to command a scene gives the character of von Stauffenberg the necessary gravitas to convincingly be someone capable of plotting an assassination.

Planning The 20 July Plot

The first half of Valkyrie is primarily focused on the conversations Tom Cruise's von Stauffenberg has with other members of the Nazi military about moving against Hitler. Cruise meets with several venerated actors playing real-life historical figures, some whom bring von Stauffenberg into the conspiracy and others who are brought in themselves. The plotters eventually decided on the 20 July plan. There were several assassination attempts by this German Resistance force, but it was not until von Stauffenberg became attached that serious plans were made. The 20 July plot is shown at the climax of Valkyrie while the lead up is appropriately tense, as most great great Christopher McQuarrie movies are .

According to Time magazine, the plotters of 20 July chose the Wolf's Lair as the location for the assassination. This secret base held a fortified, windowless, underground main bunker. A room like that would amplify the effects of the bomb they planned to detonate. As it was shown in Valkyrie, July 20 proved to be an incredibly hot day, so Hitler's meeting was moved to a larger room not ideal for a detonation. The way Tom Cruise and his co-conspirators act concerned while still keeping their composure in front of the other Nazis is a fascinating look into what was going through the plotters' heads on that day.

Related: Why It Took Tom Cruise So Long To Make A Billion Dollar Movie

Detonation And Immediate Aftermath

In Valkyrie , as in real life, according to Time , the bomb is rigged inside a suitcase with a set timer. Unfortunately, an attaché of Hitler, Colonel Heinz Brandt (played by Tom Hollander, adding another villainous character to his catalog), is suspicious of von Stauffenberg from the moment he arrives. Von Stauffenberg carefully sets the suitcase bomb under the war table where Hitler is standing, and it seems for a moment that Valkyrie may be turning into alternative history film, like Inglourious Basterds . Just as things appear to be going according to plan, Brandt moves the suitcase bomb out from under Hitler's chair, just to be safe.

There is no evidence for Brandt knowing anything about the conspiracy, and the suitcase was most likely simply shifted during the course of the meeting. Whatever the cause, the explosion of the suitcase bomb killed three officers, including Brandt but only left minor wounds on Hitler, according to History . While in another Tom Cruise movie, the actor might run out of the exploding camp to the next set piece, Valkyrie stays true to the history, and von Stauffenberg calmly slides into an army jeep and talks his way back to Berlin. This is identical to the real life flight of von Stauffenberg, as he and the rest of the conspirators raced to finish their ploy.

Operation Valkyrie

The title of Valkyrie is taken from "Operation Valkyrie," a government sanctioned contingency that laid out the plans for the reserve army to make arrests on behalf of the German government. This operation was the core of the conspirators' plans and the reason it had the best chance of success of any coup since the 1938 plot to kill Hitler in Munich . Von Stauffenberg gets Adolf Hitler to sign an amended version of the plan that puts more power into the hands of the plotters. In Valkyrie, von Stauffenberg meets with Hitler to have the document signed, a piece of film fiction to add more agency to von Stauffenberg's actions.

While the post-assassination events in Valkyrie see the conspirators nearly reaching their goal of having all the Nazi officials arrested, the real story is wrapped up much quicker. In both the movie and history, it quickly becomes clear that Adolf Hitler survived the assassination attempt and ordered all the initiators of Operation Valkyrie arrested. Nearly 200 plotters were captured and brutally executed for their involvement in the plan. Many of the executions are shown in the final scenes of the movie, and von Stauffenberg's death by firing squad is filmed with Tom Cruise's character shouting before he dies , " Long live Germany! " — the true final words of the German patriot.

More: Tom Cruise's Huge Space Movie Plan Can Complete A Wild Career Trend

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Claus von stauffenberg: the true story behind the film valkyrie, starring tom cruise.

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"Valkyrie" is a meticulous thriller based on a large-scale conspiracy within the German army to assassinate Hitler, leading to a failed bombing attempt on July 20, 1944. At the center of the plot was Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, played here by Tom Cruise as the moving force behind the attempted coup, which led to 700 arrests and 200 executions, including von Stauffenberg's. Because we know Hitler survived, the suspense is centered in the minds of the participants, who call up the Reserve Army and actually arrest SS officials before discovering that their bomb did not kill its target.

Considering they were planning high treason with the risk of certain death, the conspirators seem remarkably willing to speak almost openly of their contempt for Hitler. That may be because they were mostly career officers in the army's traditional hierarchy and hated Hitler as much for what he was doing to the army as for what he was doing to the country. Realizing after the invasion of Normandy that the war was certainly lost, they hoped to spare hundreds of thousands of military and civilian lives.

Von Stauffenberg was known to be "offended" by the Nazi treatment of Jews in the 1930s and considered the Kristallnacht a disgrace to Germany, which possibly disturbed him as much as the fate of its victims. In any event, little is said among the conspirators about the genocide then underway -- although, being alienated from the SS, perhaps they didn't know what was happening. Perhaps.

They repeatedly tell each other that even should they fail, at least the world would know that not all Germans supported Hitler. And so it does. And whatever their deepest motives, they gave their lives in trying to kill the monster. The film, directed by Bryan Singer (" The Usual Suspects "), works heroically to introduce us to the major figures in the plot, to tell them apart, to explain their roles and to suggest their differences. The two best supporting performances are by Kenneth Branagh , as a major-general who smuggles a bomb into Hitler's inner circle and then must smuggle it out again, and Tom Wilkinson , as a general who artfully plays both sides of the fence, treating the plot with benign neutrality while covering himself should it fail.

Tom Cruise is perfectly satisfactory, if not electrifying, in the leading role. I'm at a loss to explain the blizzard of negative advance buzz fired at him for the effrontery of playing a half-blind, one-armed Nazi hero. Two factors may be to blame: (a) Cruise has attracted so much publicity by some of his own behavior (using Oprah's couch as a trampoline) that anything he does sincerely seems fair game for mockery, and (b) movie publicity is now driven by gossip, scandal and the eagerness of fanboys and girls to attract attention by posing as critics of movies they've almost certainly not seen. Now that the movie is here, the buzz is irrelevant, but may do residual damage.

If I say that Cruise is not electrifying, I must add that with this character, in this story, he cannot and should not be. This is a film about veterans of officer rank, with all the reserve and probity that officers gather on the way up. They do not scream or hurry and do not care to be seen that way. They have learned not to panic under fire, and they have never been more under fire than now.

A key element of their plot is to use Hitler's "Valkyrie" plan against him. The reserves were held back to defend Berlin and Hitler in case of an Allied assault, so von Stauffenberg conceived the strategy of killing Hitler, ordering up the reserves to ensure stability and making its first order of business the immobilization of the SS. We see that the plan might well have worked. Indeed, it did -- until the news arrived that Hitler was still alive. So much did the Fuhrer command the fanatical loyalty of troops and civilians with an almost mystical grip, that merely his voice on the radio could defeat the plot, even with Germany clearly facing ruin.

The July 20 plot is an intriguing footnote to history, one of those "what if" scenarios. If it had succeeded, one of the hopes of the conspirators was said to be an alliance with the Allies against Russia. Given the political realities of the time, when Russia was seen as our ally, that would have been insane, but it shows the plotters continuing to dream of a reborn professional German army with roles for them. The question of the liberation of the death camps is a good one. Even the Allies did not bomb the rail lines leading to them. There were so very, very many people who did not know.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Valkyrie (2008)

Rated PG-13 for violence and brief strong language

121 minutes

Bill Nighy as Olbricht

Thomas Kretschmann as Remer

Terence Stamp as Beck

Tom Wilkinson as Fromm

Tom Cruise as Von Stauffenberg

Kenneth Branagh as Von Tresckow

Eddie Izzard as Fellgiebel

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W hat becomes of a movie star when the career hits a hiccup and the lustre starts to fade? If the movie star is smart, they go back to basics, reconnecting with the fire of their formative years. What drove them back then? What first made them strive for greatness? "When I was a kid I always wanted to kill Hitler," Tom Cruise revealed recently. "I hated that guy and all he stood for."

Valkyrie, then, is not just the latest Tom Cruise action thriller. It is the fruition of a dream; a boyhood fantasy writ large; a Hollywood blockbuster that provides an opportunity that was denied him in life. Inevitably he bungles it.

Bryan Singer's picture casts Cruise as Claus von Stauffenberg, the Wehrmacht colonel who spearheaded the 20 July 1944 plot to save the fatherland. Wounded in battle and sporting a natty eye-patch, von Stauffenberg has grown sick of war. He wants to "show the world that not all Germans are like Hitler". He hates that guy and all he stands for.

The obvious sticking point here is that (spoiler!) von Stauffenberg did not actually kill Hitler. The plot failed and the conspirators were executed. Played as a tragedy, or a stark study of failed ambitions, this might not have been a problem. Except that Singer opts to frame Valkyrie as a high-concept wartime suspense thriller, inviting us to suspend our disbelief and go along for the ride.

The 1944 plot was at least fiendishly planned and generally well executed. Singer's, by contrast, seems flawed and foolhardy from the start.

But what of Singer's co-conspirator? Valkyrie paints von Stauffenberg as the archetypal "good German", a model of elegant disenchantment. And yet Cruise, for all his skills as a performer, does not do disenchantment. For all the anguished moments of doubt, the constant stares into the mirror, his von Stauffenberg is essentially Top Gun with an eye-patch.

The film's curious melange of dialects only underscores this quality. Von Stauffenberg's cohorts are played by British actors (Bill Nighy, Terence Stamp, Kenneth Branagh) who deliver their lines in English accents. The villainous Nazi is portrayed by German actor Thomas Kretschmann who speaks English in a German accent. And then - standing separate and apart - is Cruise himself, intoning his lines in pureblood American. He might as well have been dropped in from an Allied plane; a gung-ho Hollywood hero sent in to clean up a very European mess. He couldn't manage it as a kid, and he can't quite do it now. Hitler one; Tom Cruise nil.

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Valkyrie (2008)

Tom cruise: colonel claus von stauffenberg.

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[last lines] 

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : Long live sacred Germany!

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : Look them in the eye. They'll remember you.

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : [translation of letter he is writing]  The Fuhrer's promises of peace and prosperity have fallen by the wayside leaving in their wake a path of destruction. The outrages committed by Hitler's SS are a stain on the honor of the German Army. There is widespread disgust in the officer corps toward the crimes committed by the Nazis, the murder of civilians, the torture and starvation of prisoners, the mass execution of Jews. My duty as an officer is no longer to save my country, but to save human lives. I cannot find one general in a position to confront Hitler with the courage to do it.

[from trailer] 

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : Only God can judge us now.

Werner von Haeften : You're as guilty as any of us.

General Friedrich Fromm : [scoffing]  Spare me, Lieutenant.

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : No one will be spared.

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : I'm a soldier, I serve my country. But this is not my country. I was lying out there bleeding to death, thinking, if I die now, I leave nothing to my children but shame. I know now there is only one way to serve Germany, and doing so I'll be a traitor - I accept that. Just tell me, can these men see it through?

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : You can serve Germany, or the Fuhrer. Not both!

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : I am involved in high treason with all means available to me. Can I count you in?

Werner von Haeften : For anything, sir. Anything at all.

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : "Anything" is a *very* dangerous word, Lieutenant.

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : If I fail, they'll come for you. They'll come for all of you.

Nina Von Stauffenberg : I know.

Erich Fellgiebel : And you think that makes me a sympathizer, hey? Give a man a choice of betraying his fellow officer or his Fuhrer and you think his actions will show you his heart.

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : It's not that simple.

Erich Fellgiebel : Yes. Yes it is. For the last time, don't push me to make a decision.

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : I don't have a choice, it's clear now. Without you there is no hope of success.

Erich Fellgiebel : You're nothing but rats jumping from a sinking ship! What makes you think you'll be any different? What makes you think you're stronger than the people, the Reich? The very momentum of history?

Henning von Tresckow : You scared me half to death.

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : You'll be closer than that before we're finished.

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : [after being informed Hitler is meeting Benito Mussolini for lunch]  Will Mussolini be at the briefing?

Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel : We should be so lucky. Then some ambitious young officer might do us a favor and shoot the Dago bastard!

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : Hitler is dead. Operation Valkyrie is in effect.

General Friedrich Fromm : What is it you want?

General Friedrich Olbricht : I wanted to introduce our new man, Colonel Stauffenberg.

General Friedrich Fromm : Ah! From Africa. Well, I'd offer you my hand, but I might not get it back.

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : I'd say the General's lost more important things this morning.

[pause] 

General Friedrich Fromm : [laughs]  It's about time they put somebody with balls into this office.

General Friedrich Fromm : I'll hear you say it Colonel!

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : [angrily turns and raises false arm]  Heil Hitler!

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : Gentlemen, in three hours I want confirmation that the government quarter is ours and SS Command has been cleared of every living soul. You all know what must be done. By nightfall I want to know that Hitler's Germany has seen its last sunrise.

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : We have to kill Hitler.

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : I'm a soldier, but in serving my country, I have betrayed my conscience.

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : There has to be a chance of success.

General Friedrich Olbricht : That's why you're here.

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : Get the car.

Werner von Haeften : [dissapointed on not accompanying him]  But sir...

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : [curtly]  I have everything I need. Get the car.

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : [when all are wondering who shall go to get Hitler's signiture on the Valkyrie papers]  Well, we can all draw straws for that job.

Werner von Haeften : We've lost contact with District 11.

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg : The switchboard is overloaded. Give it ten minutes and try again.

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Germany Hospitable to Cruise’s ‘Valkyrie’

Compiled by Dave Itzkoff

• Dec. 29, 2008

Though the Tom Cruise movie “Valkyrie” received mixed reviews in the United States, it has been greeted with a measured and hospitable reception in Germany, where it was once viewed with suspicion, Reuters reported. In “Valkyrie,” Mr. Cruise, left, plays Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, a Prussian officer who led an assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944. During the film’s production, the German Defense Ministry briefly refused to allow filming at the Bendlerblock memorial in Berlin, citing Mr. Cruise’s beliefs in Scientology (which is not a recognized religion in Germany). Stauffenberg’s son, Berthold Stauffenberg , told Der Spiegel, “I fear that only terrible kitsch will come out of the project.” But in writing about “Valkyrie,” the newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger said that any fear that the “myth of the German resistance would be put through a Hollywood filter has turned out to be wrong and prejudicial.” And the German public broadcaster ZDF said that “Valkyrie” was “neither scandalously bad nor the event of the century,” adding, “Neither is it the action thriller we feared, but it is a well-made and serious film.”

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Stauffenberg's Son on Tom Cruise Film 'It's Bound To Be Rubbish'

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There was much excitement in Berlin last weekend when Hollywood actor Tom Cruise came to the German capital  to scout filming locations for the upcoming movie "Valkyrie," in which he will play Claus von Stauffenberg -- a leading figure in a failed 1944 assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler.

However he would have been unlikely to get a warm reception from Stauffenberg's son, should he have met with him to discuss the role. Stauffenberg Junior is less than thrilled about the celebrity Scientologist playing the role of his father.

"It's bound to be rubbish," 72-year-old Berthold Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, a retired German army officer and the oldest of Claus von Stauffenberg's five children, told the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung in an interview published in Friday's edition.

"It is unpleasant for me that an avowed Scientologist will be playing my father," Stauffenberg Junior told the newspaper. He admitted that he seldom went to the cinema or watched television, and that he only knew Cruise from "one of those military films" ("Top Gun").

"I'm not saying that Cruise is a bad actor -- I can't judge that," he said. "But I fear that only terrible kitsch will come out of the project."

"I had hoped for a long time that the project was just a publicity stunt on the part of Cruise," Stauffenberg said. "Clearly that appears to not be the case. It's bound to be rubbish."

He is not, however, planning to take action to stop the film being made. "My father is a historical figure. ... Even if I took action against the film, there would be the danger that I would only be publicizing it."

His advice for Cruise? "He should keep his hands off my father. He should climb a mountain or go surfing in the Caribbean. I don't care what he does, so long as he keeps out of it."

However not all the family is so bothered by Cruise -- who happens to bear a passing resemblance to Claus von Stauffenberg -- taking on the role. Grandson Caspar Graf von Stauffenberg, 41, recently told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag that he "didn't have any fundamental problem" with a new film being made about his grandfather: "After all, this medium is good for explaining history."

Stauffenberg is something of a hero in Germany for being part of a plot to kill Hitler with two suitcase bombs on July 20, 1944. The aristocratic officer was executed by the Nazis the following day for his role in the conspiracy.

The new Cruise vehicle, which will be directed by "Superman Returns" director Bryan Singer and has a scheduled release date of 2008, is by no means the first film to be made about Stauffenberg and the bomb plot. Other versions of the gripping story include Jo Baier's 2004 German movie "Stauffenberg," the 1955 German film "Es Geschah am 20. Juli" ("It Happened on July 20") and the American 1990 TV film "The Plot to Kill Hitler."

However Stauffenberg Junior was not very impressed by the other versions either. In the interview he said he was "annoyed" by historical inaccuracies in Baier's film, and described "The Plot to Kill Hitler" as "terrible, really awful."

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