July 21, 2007: Every year on July 20 Germans are
reminded that World War II might have ended differently. On
this date in the summer of 1944, Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von
Stauffenberg placed his attaché case with a bomb under
the table near Adolf Hitler in a conference room in Hitler's
Prussian military hideout "Wolfsschanze". Later the person
sitting next to Stauffenberg moved it because the
attaché case was in his way. He put it on the other side
of a large table leg, farther away from Hitler. When the bomb
went off, Hitler was not seriously injured. Stauffenberg and a
number of his co-conspirators were later executed in
Berlin.
Yesterday the customary speeches were given and a wreath was
placed at the site of Stauffenberg's execution. This year, the
July 20th ceremonies may have seemed a bit different. The
reason is a new movie being produced about the assassination
attempt. Filming began on Thursday in the Brandenburg forest
southeast of Berlin, and the actor chosen to portray Graf von
Stauffenberg is none other than Hollywood's Tom Cruise. The
"Wolfsschanze" was reconstructed in the forest as one of the
sets, and an old East Germany airfield nearby will be used as
another set for Stauffenberg's flight to Berlin in a Junkers
JU-52.
Two JU-52 planes have been chartered from a Swiss company
for the shooting and were "outfitted" with German World War II
markings to make them look authentic. During their test flights
at the set the planes raised a few eyebrows among nearby
residents. 
More eyebrows have been raised, however,
over Cruise's involvement in the movie. Cruise is a member
of Scientology, a group largely viewed in Germany as a
"pseudo-church" that is seen as using mind control and
pressure tactics to attract and keep its "members", who
are generally considered to be wealthy individuals being
bilked by the sect. More than one of Germany's federal
states has Scientology on its watch list as a potentially
dangerous sect.
Having a well-known Scientology member play the role of Graf
von Stauffenberg doesn't appeal to everyone. The only member of
Stauffenberg's group of consipirators still living, Philipp
Freiherr von Boeselager, told the magazine "Vanity Fair" that
he is not against having Cruise portray Stauffenberg as long as
Cruise "can make a distinction between the sect he represents
and the movie. But if those two were to be mixed in some subtle
way and used to benefit Scientology, then I would be opposed
[to Cruise's involvement] 100 percent." Boeselager was the one
who got the explosives for Stauffenberg's bomb in 1944. In
remarks made to the "Süddeutsche Zeitung", Stauffenberg's
oldest son Berthold voiced his disapproval over Cruise playing
the role of his dad by saying, "I don't like the idea of an
avowed Scientologist playing the role of my father."
Cruise's colleague Armin Mueller-Stahl, who was reported to
be one of the candidates to play Hitler in the film, called
Germans critical of Cruise's involvement "inhibited,
small-minded and uptight," adding that an actor's performance
can't be judged until the film is finished. Cruise's
performance in the movie may not be as interesting for some
Germans as the fact that tax revenues are being used to
subsidize the movie. The German Federal Film Fund is providing
4.8 million euros in funding to United Artists, a sizeable
check for a film whose main star represents an American sect
that itself collects millions from its members.
