“Are these the Nazis, Walter?”
“No, Donny, these men are Scientologists, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Stranger
It looks like the one in this photo.
Lets see. Tom Cruise starred in Minority Report which was directed by Steven Speilberg. Steven Speilberg also directed Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade which featured Nazis! Two links. I win. 
I’ve since read the Wikipedia article on Rommel, and it says that he didn’t know directly of the July 20 plot, but that since he was on written lists of the plotters, he was given the “option” of taking cyanide.
You know, those Nazis were so generous…
Even worse than a Nazi - I hear he’s a liberal!
Anyone else thinks he looks goofy in the picture… sure he ain’t giving us that stupid Smile… but He still doesn’t look right. He looks too much like Tom Cruise in dress up rather than a character in a film. I don’t think I can seperate the actor from the part. I have a feeling as I watch all I’ll think is… “hey it’s Tom Cruise Vs Hitler.”
The cynical part of me suspects that this anti-Nazi movie is just the Scienos trying to get on Germany’s good side.
I think some of the dismissals of von S. are rather unfair. The Wiki article portrays him as an aristocratic conservative nationalist who, although endorsing territorial aggression and the taking of slave laborers in Poland, nevertheless abhorred the crudest expressions of anti-semitism and thuggery by the Nazis, dating back to Kristallnacht. It also sketches his role in trying to humanize the Nazis’ policies on the Ostfront and treatment of POWs and his disapproval of Hitler’s “Commissar Order” (providing for the summary execution of all captured Soviet commissars). Although von S. could argue for a more humanized Eastern Front for the pragmatic reason of encouraging the civilians there to align themselves with the Germans (and many did so, at first seeing the Germans as potential liberators from Soviet tyranny), the article suggests his motivation was genuinely ethical or moral as well.
The article also portrays a man who, though loathing Hitler and part of his ideology, flirted with the German resistance for years before finally committing himself to their cause – in 1942, a far cry earlier than the summer of ‘44 (the time of the bomb plot’s execution). Apparently the chief sticking point until 1942 was his misgivings concerning his already having sworn an oath of personal allegiance to the Fuhrer, as all military personnel had had to do; and what pushed him over the edge was the mounting evidence that Hitler was an incompetent war leader (the aristocrats’ and career military officers’ dismissal of “the corporal”).
There was a constant ferment of conspiracy and plotting, complicated by the unpredictability of Hitler’s schedule (and behavior) and security, and von Stauffenberg’s determination to kill off as many of the top Nazi leaders as possible in one throw. Then in April of '43, he was seriously wounded and underwent a period of recuperation, but by the fall he was back to the plotting and conspiring.
By the time of the July '44 bombing, two of von S.'s fellow conspirators had already failed in their suicidal plots. Von S. was needed as a persuasive rallying voice for winning over key Wehrmacht officers to the post-bombing anti-Nazi coup, so a suicide mission was out of the question. He was by that time the only member of the Wehrmacht conspirators to have his privileged access to Hitler (and to be fully trusted by him).
I suppose we could bewail that von Stauffenberg didn’t just resign his commission in the late 1930’s and done something like joining the Confessing Church movement organized by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but ultimately what good would that have done? He’d just have been arrested sooner, and wouldn’t have had nearly as good an opportunity to pull off an assassination.
As for the movie, I just hope Cruise doesn’t inject some heavy-handed anti-psychiatry propaganda – as in the portrayal of Hitler’s drug dependence and his Dr. Morell, which was a serious problem but hardly an indictment of the psychiatric establishment. Also, at age 45, Tom is getting a tad old to play a man who died at 36. It’s too bad they didn’t take a chance on a relative unknown like Matthew Settle, who was so good playing the formidable Spiers in Band of Brothers and is 38 (and maybe 5-10 lbs. overweight) now.
I always thought it was given to him as an “option” because of general dissent on the Western front with Hitler’s strategies.
The trailer is up. I think I also heard it’ll be on any print of Lions for Lambs (which opens today).
NPR trashed Lions for Lambs on the air today. It being the first product AFAIK of Cruise’s relaunching of United Artists, doesn’t bode well for the company.
Sir, you degrade the Nazi with this association.