TRUE STORY OF VALKYRIE
Valkyrie: The Real Col. von Stauffenberg
On a sultry July day in 1944, a man walks into the “Wolf’s Lair”
carrying a briefcase. He is initiating a bold plot, one that aims
to assassinate one of the world’s most ruthless and powerful men,
Adolf Hitler, and topple the whole of his Nazi government. Integral
to this ambitious coup is what lies in his briefcase, a bomb. It is
set to detonate … the wheels are in motion. It is only a matter of
time now.
The man was Claus Philipp Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg,
the driving force behind what became known as the July 20 plot and
the main character in Valkyrie, the recently released movie about
the event. The film seeks to acquaint the audience with this hero
and the conspiracy of which he was part, yet it depicts the
machinations better than the man. And this is a shame, because
quite a man he was.
Claus von Stauffenberg was born of aristocratic stock in his
family’s castle in what was then the Kingdom of Bavaria on November
15, 1907. He was the youngest of three brothers, and his Roman
Catholic family was one of the oldest and most distinguished in
southern Germany. Claus was a gifted boy and excelled in both
academics and athletics. He gravitated toward literature, becoming
a lover of poetry, and he learned to speak fluent Russian, French,
and English, and was also semi-fluent in Greek and Latin. His
equestrian skills won him a place on the German Olympic team.
Nevertheless, he chose a military career, joined a cavalry regiment
(horses were relied upon for many transportation duties even during
WWII) in 1926 and four years later was
commissioned a second lieutenant. In 1933, he married Nina Freiin
von Lerchenfeld, and they ultimately would have five children
together.
That same year Hitler rose to power in Germany. But von
Stauffenberg would not become a Nazi and early on expressed
misgivings about the regime, feelings that would become more
intense as the National Socialists increasingly displayed their
true colors. For example, he was appalled by the November 1938
Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass), when in a single night
the Nazis ransacked thousands of Jewish businesses and homes. He
considered Kristallnacht to be a stain upon Germany. In fact, owing
to this atrocity and many others, that year he became completely
disillusioned with the Nazis. And he wasn’t alone in his
feelings.
Von Stauffenberg found kindred spirits in the German resistance
movement, which, although comprising small autonomous groups,
existed throughout the Nazi reign (1933-1945). This is not to say
he was as yet an official member of the resistance — the most
significant part of which was found in his milieu, the military —
but he did have contact with some of its members and was well-aware
that conspiracies to overthrow the regime existed. It was at this
point that he started pondering effective ways to launch a coup.
This included entertaining thoughts about assassinating Hitler.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/history/i…