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You said your son is a history major. He would flunk my WWII class. This movie is not accurate. The plotters hated Hitler and wanted to kill him because 1.Hitler violated his Faustian bargain with Hindenberg that the Landwehr would be the only bearer of arms in die Fatherland by creating the Waffen SS and giving them priviledges over the General Staff 2. Hitler interfered with military tactics and strategy, leading to horrible losses and problems (see Barbarossa as an easy example of why the General Staff hated Hitler and 3. Hitler diverted supplies and soldiers from the Eastern Front to the death camps, making horrible situations even more so and 4. Hitler's buddy screwed up the Luftwaffe, denying them air supremacy, etc.Add in that Hitler was just an enlisted man...They didn't give a rat's ass about the atrocities at the camps; the camps were built to keep soldiers from going insane on the Eastern Front from directly killing Jews (see the Wann See Conference). All these guys wanted was to win enough battles to negotiate a settlement with the Allies on favorable terms.
The most important thing to come out of this was Rommel's suicide (he was given the choice of suicide or a public trial with reprisals against his family). It sealed the Axis's fate and really gave the ground war to the Allies in the invasion of Fortress Europe.
I've read the plot, and gotten the package from the producers (I am a military history professor teaching WWII next semester, and they want us to recommend it). No.
So maxiemom, tell your some to read Keegan's The Second World War, watch the excellent World at War series, and whatever he does, DO NOT reference this film in any WWII military history class. If he does, he will get humiliated.
Cruise does not carry himself as he should. I've seen that in the trailers. I would rather have seen this story made by a German director with international actors (like Das Boot). The trailers have little things wrong with them. Perhaps if they had actually read "The German General Talk" or the Nuremberg debriefings they would have gotten the story right.
There are no heroes here. Not in this story. That is one thing that many Germans understand. It is not that they see him as a traitor. It is that they wanted to do the right thing for the wrong reason AND they screwed it up.
