Valkyrie (2008 film)

Valkyrie is a 2008 film about the attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler by a team of German soldiers.

6 out of 10 stars.  The moral to the story:  don’t plot an assassination with a coward in your group.

In 1944, during World War II, several German officers who were military not Nazis or SS or Gestapo hatched a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler and his top staff then take over the country by mobilizing the national guard against the SS.  The document which outlined this mobilization of the national guard was called the Valkyrie Order.

The plan would have worked but for two events:

1. The bomb was designed for a bunker, but the meeting was moved to an outdoor open building like a gazebo.  So Hitler was not killed because the amount of explosive was inadequate.  I don’t think moving the bomb in the bag against the table leg made any difference at all.  It is a bomb.
2. General Friedrich Olbricht chickened out after the bombing and failed to declare the Valkyrie Order to mobilize the national guard.  One of the other men finally forged Olbricht’s signature so the plot could continue, but three precious hours were wasted and contributed greatly to its completely failure.  That order was necessary to arrest the SS and Gestapo.  Instead the SS and Gestapo arrested the conspirators and executed them all.

The sad part is that Olbricht was such a coward he refused to do his part and got them all killed, but Hitler lived to keep on killing.  When the worst thing that can happen is death and if you don’t act it’s death, then why would you not act?

6 out of 10 stars.  From the very beginning, this was a risky plan.  They should have planted a bigger bomb, killed everyone, and fled the country.  The national guard was never designed to be used in a coup, which is what this was.  Their command structure simply doesn’t allow it.