The picture is a Staufenberg mini-biography and focusing the July 20 plot of 1944.His life and the famous event from how was orchestrated the dangerous,risked plot has been splendidly directed by Jo Baier.The film is correctly based on true events and real Nazis characters and well played by a sensational plethora of German actors.The real deeds are the following: Claus Schenk Graf Von Stauffenberg (Sebastian Koch)served as Lieutenant Colonel on the General Staff ,in the early part of WWII got distinction as an officer in a Bavarian cavalry regiment in Poland,France and North Africa.In April 1943 he was wounded in the face,in both hands,and in the knee by fire from a low-flying Allied plane,he kept one eye and lost his right hand and part of his leg.During his convalescence revised his attitude.He made no secret of his utter contempt for Hitler and Nazism,then he decided to join the conspirators with the goal of liquidating the Nazi regime and replacing it with a new social state that would maintain the good name of the fatherland.At the center of the plot were seniors officers Gen.Henning Von Tresckow(Ulrich Tukur,starring in Amen by Costa Gravas),,Fielf Marshall Erwin Witzleben((Joachim Bissmeyer),General Olbricht(Rainer Bock),General Beck(Remo Girone),General Friedric Fromm(Axel Milberg).Added to these seniors were a number of younger officers who believed that the third Reich was a catastrophe for Germany and were willing to gamble their lives on the outcome of the plot,among them was Werner Haeften(Hardy Kruger Jr).Other knew of the plot but did not take an active role in it,among them were Field Marshal Erin Rommel popular war hero and Field Marshal Hans Von Kluge ,army group of France.Hitler(Udo Schenk) called a conference of his close military advisers at headquarters at Ratenburg.The compound was protected by numerous electric fences and barbed wire,with blockhouses and checkpoints.Stauffenberg arrived at Rastenburg ,in his briefcase along with papers and reports, was a British time bomb,he set the timer on the bomb and brought it into the conference room and he placed it on the floor and then excused himself but he would must make a telephone call.Several minutes passed when at this moment a tremendous explosion blasted the room and several bodies flew out of the smashed windows and wrecking the ceiling.Meanwhile,Stauffenberg,certain that all in the hut had been killed was a plane bound for Berlin,but he learned to his amazement that Hitler had not been killed by the blast .Officers who were in the plot were dismayed and virtually paralyzed into inaction.Officers loyal to Hitler as Otto Remer(Muti) had taken control of the War Ministry and arrested the conspirators.General Fromm hurried to cover his tracks,he had four officers shot by a firing squad in the courtyard below.Beck was killed with a coup de grace.Hitler's vengeance was terrible .The conspirators were handed over to the tortures of Gestapo,many more were killed in a a massive blood purge.Some were strangled with piano wire and their bodies hanged like animal carcasses on huge hooks.General Fromm,who had been active in ordering the executions could not save himself,principal leaders met a barbaric death, among them the Adm. Wilhelm Canaris.Field Marshal Von Witzleben 's execution was typical,the old man was pushed into a cellar prison,placed under the first meat hook and stripped to the waist,a running noose was placed over the hook and wound around his neck,he was lifted and allowed to fall with the whole weight of his body ,young cadets ,forced to view the gruesome spectacle ,fainted.
