I had to take a long walk after seeing Valkyrie, the Tom Cruise movie about Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg’s attempt to assassinate Hitler. As I mentioned in the review of Benjamin Button, I tend to come late to movies, but actually I had intended to see this one in a theater.
I never made it–its run was rather short–but the reason for seeing it remained–a friend had told me that my grandfather was in the movie. I found this a bit hard to believe, attributing it to the usual Hollywood plot-twisting, because at the time my grandfather was in the United States. Yet one incident in my family’s life hung over the movie.
On my father’s last visit to Germany he had met with von Stauffenberg’s son. He dropped this casually into a conversation many years ago and then just as quickly ended any further inquiries. All he would say was that von Stauffenberg thanked him for all my grandfather had done to oppose Hitler and to rebuild Germany after the war.
It has only been a few weeks since returned from the National Archives after reading formerly top secret OSS documents about my grandfather, who headed one of three key German exile groups in this country. Targeted by the Nazis for his outspoken opposition to Hitler, whom he termed a madman, he and my family fled the country two steps ahead of the Gestapo. The Nazis wanted him badly enough that several times they tried to have him extradited back to Germany for a trial by one of their kangaroo courts.
I suspect this history is why von Stauffenberg’s son met with my father. I could find nothing in the OSS files that even hinted that my grandfather played any role in the plot to kill Hitler.
Yet still I watched this movie with a closer eye than usual. Let me spare you, if you have not seen it: the movie is terrible–badly written, badly acted and badly directed. It is probably the worst film I have seen in the last few years. One reviewer said this movie gets the award as the film containing the worst acting performances by any of its stars. But its biggest problem is not aesthetics, but ethics. This movie raises too many uncomfortable questions–the kind that send you on long walks in the dark.
For the press the issue revolved around the casting of Tom Cruise, who as everyone who has not been on the moon the last few years know, is a highly-visible–and at times outspoken–member of the Church of Scientology, which the German government is on record as opposing. But in fact there is not only a misunderstanding of the German position on this issue but also a lack of sensitivity to the film’s deeper issues.
The Controversy
When word first leaked out about Cruise starring in a film about von Stauffenberg, objections surfaced from none other than the German government. The German Defense Ministry warned that if Cruise accepted the role, Ministry sites would be off-limits to the filmmakers. Time reported a Ministry spokesperson stated:
Stauffenberg played an important role in the military resistance against the Nazi regime. A sincere and respectful depiction of the events of July 20 [the failed plot to assassinate Hitler] is therefore very much in our interest. Tom Cruise, with his Scientology background, is not the right person for this.
Antje Blumenthal, a senior official in the ruling Christian Democratic Union party, also objected:
I am very glad that the filming permission for such a high-ranking Scientology member could have been prevented.
German journalist Josef Joffe put the casting in a perspective readers of the New York Times could understand:
Stauffenberg for Germans is like Jefferson and Lincoln, motherhood, and apple pie all rolled into one. Germany is a country of established churches, and so Scientology is viewed as a cult and, worse, totalitarian and exploitative. A professing Scientologist in the role of Stauffenberg is like casting Judas as Jesus. It is secular blasphemy.
Some of the Von Stauffenberg family was also outspoken in their objections to the film. In an interview published in Süddeutsche Zeitun, 72-year-old Berthold Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, a retired German army officer, the oldest of Claus von Stauffenberg’s five children and the man my father met, objected to Cruise playing the role in no uncertain terms:
It is unpleasant for me that an avowed Scientologist will be playing my father…I had hoped for a long time that the project was just a publicity stunt on the part of Cruise. Clearly that appears to not be the case. It’s bound to be rubbish.
- Berthold Graf Stauffenberg
On the other hand, Philipp von Schulthess, the soldier’s grandson who has a small role in the movie, had something positive to say.
Most of them (von Stauffenberg’s children) haven’t seen it. They’re crossing their fingers this turned out well. I think it did, and hope they agree.
Despite the opposition there also were many in Germany who welcomed both Cruise and the film believing it would help change images of their country and the war. The Burda publishing house even chose to give Tom Cruise the Bambi Courage award. Frank Schirrmacher of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote:
Because of Cruise’s courageous decision to play this role, he has indirectly fulfilled Stauffenberg’s intentions. Based on his story, a huge audience will come to understand that one can oppose inhumanity, and that a hero’s courage and nobility are even more important than the success of his deeds.
Tobias Kniebe gave the film a positive review in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung:
Valkyrie doesn’t re-invent cinema and it’s no masterpiece that will enable us to imagine the true story in all of its aspects – but it isn’t far from being so.
in the end despite the choice of box office draw Cruise, the film barely earned a profit on its US box office receipts, grossing $83 million against production costs of $75 million. The film received a 60% rating on the Rotten Tomatoes review site Tomatometer, respectful but nowhere near the 80% for Gran Torino. Most critics panned the movie.
This, of course, sets the stage for one of those arguments with no end which asks whether the controversy hurt the film.
Germany and Scientology
Many American papers made it seem as though German objections to Scientology were based on the group’s money-making schemes. Typical was this report in USA Today:
Germany has said it considers Scientology to be in conflict with the principles of the nation’s constitution, calling it less a church than a business that uses coercion to take advantage of vulnerable people.
But Ursula Caberta, the head of a government task force in Hamburg that opposes Scientology’s expansion in Germany, framed the issue far differently.
In Europe, but in Germany especially, we are more sensitive to totalitarian ideologies. Tom Cruise is not just an actor who is a Scientologist. He is an ambassador for Scientology. All totalitarian systems have their celebrities to open doors for them.
According to the BBC there are approximately 6,000 practicing Scientologists in Germany, a small enough number to not attract too much attention yet large enough to have some impact. The German Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which has investigated the church for several years, declared in one report:
There is substantial evidence that the Scientology organization is involved in activities directed against the free democratic order.
Hamburg Interior Minister Udo Nagel has called for a ban on the organization, saying Scientology aims at:
Complete repression of the individual.
In 2007 Nagel and other the German federal and state interior ministers moved to ban Scientology as an “organization that is not compatible with the constitution,” but dropped pursuit of the ban after finding insufficient evidence of illegal activity. Erhart Koerting, Berlin’s top security official, told reporters:
This organization pursues goals — through its writings, its concept and its disrespect for minorities — that we cannot tolerate and that we consider in violation of the constitution. But they put very little of this into practice.
One reason for Germany’s reticence in going further may come from the United States and the former Bush Administration. During those years the U.S. State Department regularly criticized Germany’s surveillance of Scientology in its annual Human Rights Report.
I cite this not to ignite an argument about whether Scientology is a religion or about its practices, but to illustrate the mindset of many Germans who are suspicious of the organization. Note that the thread running through these suspicions has less to do with money and more to do with what some consider to be the church’s anti-democratic practices. In short, many see it as a cult.
To go back to the USA Today quote, it is not the money-making but the coercion that worries many Germans. Perhaps the most definitive–and must-read– source about Germany and Scientology comes from none other than the German Embassy in Washington. In its paper “Understanding the German View of Scientology,” the embassy points out that the surveillance of the group came from a petition signed by over 40,000 citizens as well as complaints by people about the church’s coercive methods.
The embassy goes on to point out the country’s special circumstances:
Because of its experiences during the Nazi regime, Germany has a special responsibility to monitor the development of any extreme group within its borders — even when the group’s members are small in number. Given the indisputable evidence that the Scientology organization has repeatedly attempted to interfere with the American government and has harmed individuals within Germany, the German federal government has responded in a very measured legal fashion to the Scientology organization.
Where the report gets interesting is in its documentation of an organized public relations campaign by Scientology against Germany. If one places this campaign in the context of the film, the casting of Cruise seems less than innocent and the protests by director Singer that he had no idea about Germany’s feelings about Scientology seem either extremely naive (doesn’t this guy read the newspapers or watch TV) or very calculated.
What could be a better vehicle for pushing Scientology in Germany than to have its most visible member cast as one of Germany’s national heroes? The move also would force the German government into the difficult position of how to deal with Cruise and Singer’s requests to film at certain locations, particularly the national monument that has been erected at the site where Stauffenberg was executed.
Cruise is certainly not naive about the position of Scientology in Germany. He had to know exactly what he was doing and how the whole affair would play out in Germany. That he was in charge of the studio producing the film raises even more questions. Was it really Singer’s decision to cast Cruise in the role? Did United Artists back the movie because of the Cruise/Scientology connection? And the big one, is Cruise using United Artists to push his Scientology beliefs?
BTW, guess who financed the film–the now-collapsed Merrill Lynch, of mortgage crisis fame.
The Joffe quote again seems relevant:
A professing Scientologist in the role of Stauffenberg is like casting Judas as Jesus. It is secular blasphemy.
Filming at the Execution Site
The film makers continually pushed for location shots in Germany when alternatives existed. Was this done to place the German government in an awkward position and to raise awareness of Germany’s objections to Scientology?
Right at the top of their list was a request to film at the Bendlerblock, the site of a national memorial to von Stauffenberg and the others who were executed there.
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- German Resistance Memorial Site where Von Stauffenberg and others were executed
When the German Defense Ministry learned about the casting of Cruise in the starring role it stated that Singer would not be permitted to film of sites of national or historical significance. Cruise’s United Artists co-partner Paula Wagner immediate issued a blistering criticism stating that Cruise’s:
Personal beliefs have absolutely no bearing on the movie’s plot, themes or content.
But investigating all the sources shows that the shooting at the Bendlerblock was very cleverly arranged. The film makers cut a deal with a German company Studio Babelsberg and they applied for the permits to film, but not to the Defense Ministry but to a federal authority that rents out government buildings.
One does not have to write thrillers (maybe there is a movie to be made about the making of this movie) to imagine the exchange. A German company applies for a permit to film at the sacred site stating it is making a movie in collaboration with a major American studio about the plot to kill Hitler. At that time nothing had been released publicly about Cruise’s role.
When the Germans find out that Cruise is indeed in the movie, the permits have already been issued. Carl Woebcken, chief executive of Studio Babelsberg, came right to the point:
I hope we don’t have to go to court to enforce these agreements.
At that point the Defense Ministry could do nothing but back down. The fabled German bureaucracy had failed. This action becomes ethical question number two. Were those permits obtained under questionable circumstances?
Glossing Over the Reasons for the Plot
Questions about the casting of Cruise and the pretenses that were used to gain access to the Bendlerblock were not what sent me on that long walk. At that time I had not fully investigated these issues. What kept me awake most of that night was the content of the film.
If this ridiculous movie is to be believed the entire plot to kill Hitler stems from a record of Die Walkure which improbably begins playing on an old needle phonograph in the middle of a bombing raid that has the entire von Stauffenberg family huddled in a shelter as explosions punctuate the music. Prior to that moment von Stauffenberg had declined to join the conspiracy, but hearing the stirring sound of the Ride of the Valkyries accompanied by bombs changes his mind.
One half expects Cruise to whisper “Rosebud” at the end of the scene but then Orson Welles turned this seemingly simple device into great cinema while this movie has the entire history of the Second World War hinging on an improbable event. But director Singer cannot even leave this scene alone. Like some sophomoric film major he has the camera spin around and around with the record as if history itself were some dizzying dance.
The only scene more ridiculous than this one is the opening of the movie that has Cruise speaking German so badly that he sounds like a cast member from Hogan’s Heroes. That none of what he supposedly is writing in his diary was ever written by von Stauffenberg seems besides the point in this fantasy. After a few minutes of Cruise’s cartoon German accompanied by subtitles, director Singer switches to English which in this film means heavily-accented British English since the largely Brit cast, including the distinguished Kenneth Branagh, make no attempts to hide their accents. The notion of people who sound like British upper class twits playing German officers would have made a great Monty Python sketch but here it only adds another layer of surrealism to an already surreal project.
Both devices point to the film’s major ethical failure which is to all but ignore the moral reasons to kill Hitler. Except for that brief scene at the opening in which Cruise writes in his diary about the conduct of the war, no reference is made to the terrible crimes of the Nazis. Hitler himself appears only briefly in the film, his relatively benign demeanor providing no clue as to why people would risk their lives to kill him.
The subdued portrayal of Hitler in the film was in sharp contrast to the ideological madman. When Cruise meets him for the first time, happy children run from the room and the first shot of Hitler after Cruise enters the room shows the dictator petting his dog.
There is only a brief moment when Cruise convinces Hitler to sign the revisions of the Valkyrie contingency plan when the dictator makes a comment that you cannot understand National Socialism without understanding Wagner. This leaves even those who know the long-standing controversy about Hitler and Wagner standing in the dark, while those without such historical background are only left shaking their heads.
- Hitler and Von Stauffenberg: Photo: German Federal Archive
Blame it on Wagner, the film seems to be saying. Had he not written Die Walkure Adolf Hitler would have ended up painting houses and there would have been no war, no Holocaust and no film.
Richard Friedman of Fox411 wrote a blistering critique of the film which I quote at length because so many of its points are right on target:
I’m more concerned that “Valkyrie” could represent a new trend in filmmaking: Nazi apologia. We know already what Valkyrie is about: a group of German soldiers who tried to assassinate Hitler in 1944 and failed. Cruise plays Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg—referred to in this film constantly as “Stauffenberg”—as if to make him sound less German or something.
On top of that, there is the matter of the uniforms and the set design. Suddenly, we have German officers in World War II who are not wearing arm bands. Their swastikas are now small tokens on chests of medals. They look more like airline pilots than Nazi soldiers. When they meet, it looks like they’re at a lovely retreat in the Adirondacks.Director Bryan Singer is so sparing with his Nazi flags, swastikas, etc that you’d think the Nazis hardly existed. What’s everyone so upset about anyway?
Because in “Valkyrie” Singer opens the door to a dangerous new thought: that the Holocaust and all the other atrocities could be of secondary important to the cause of German patriotism. Not once in “Valkyrie” do any of there “heroes” mention what’s happening around them, that any of them is appalled by or against what they know is happening or has happened: Hitler has systemically killed millions in the most barbaric ways possible to imagine.
This picture bolsters Friedman’s critique of the film and tells us more than we want to know about the deliberate attempt to sanitize the film. Note how Cruise wears nothing on his uniform in contrast to the example on the left. For the real von Stauffenberg to appear without the decorations and other insignia would have been a serious offense just as it would be in our military.
I was unable to find a good photograph of von Stauffenberg in full uniform, but the hobby model below gives a reasonable approximation. Again note the contrast with the film’s “airline pilot” uniforms.
Contempt for Politicians
Another questionable thread in the film is its contempt for the politicians that were part of the resistance. Time and time again they are the ones who wimp out or who cause problems, leading Cruise to point out several times “this is a military operation.” The director reinforces this by always shooting the civilians as hovering in the background or always putting them in inferior positions on camera.
Yet the German resistance site tells a far different story. I would urge everyone who does not know the story of internal resistance to the Nazis to visit this site. It documents acts of resistance before and during the war, demonstrating that contrary to the film’s message the major players in the resistance were civilians.
The draft decree written by Carl Goerdeler, who was to have been named Chancellor, and Ludwig Beck that they planned to issue after Hitler’s death still makes for compelling reading.
No human community can exist without law; nobody, even if he thinks he can disregard it, can do without it. For each man the time comes when he cries out for justice. When God established order in the universe, created human beings and gave his commandments, he prescribed the necessity of law applied justly and impartially. He gave us the insight and strength to create the worldly institutions to secure this.
Among the many paragraphs of that decree is one pertaining to the persecution of the Jews.
Securing the law and propriety includes proper treatment of all human beings. The persecution of the Jews, which has been conducted with the most inhuman and merciless methods, in deeply shameful ways that cannot even be recompensed, is to cease immediately.
After the real coup attempt it was the civilians who received the full impact of the Nazi terror. Depending on estimates at least 200 people were executed for the plot, a significant number of them civilians. Von Stauffenberg and the officers were shot by a firing squad, but after enduring questioning by the Gestapo (and we all know what that meant) the civilians were murdered by the Nazis favorite perverse way of executing dissenters: wires were placed around their necks and they were hung from meat hooks. The film shows this only briefly at the end. It also does not tell us that the site of those executions is also a national memorial–the Plötzensee Memorial Center.
Adding it All Up
There is surely something perversely ironic about a Scientology practitioner making a film that glorifies the German military at the expense of civilian leaders. THAT is what had my awake all night. It was civilians who were the heart of the German resistance. The German people know this. Those of us whose families suffered under the Nazis know it especially well.
Tom Cruise has long been one of my favorite actors ever since his famous slide across the floor in Risky Business. They say the camera loves certain actors and Cruise seems to fit that description. He has always seemed to be having fun on the screen, even in serious roles, the way Magic Johnson always seemed to revel in playing basketball.
The Scientology angle seemed overblown, even in the reactions to the infamous remarks to Matt Lauer. It is an American paradox that as a nation we have always felt someone’s religious beliefs were their own business, yet at the same time religion has long been an issue for public figures as Al Smith, John Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama can testify. For me, as for many Americans, Cruise’s religion has not been an issue–until this film.
Adding it all up, this film still leaves me with too many unanswered and uncomfortable ethical questions.
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