The officers' hour
The Officers' Hour is a semi-documentary fictional film from 2004. It tells in chronologically coherent form the assassination attempt of July 20, 1944 on Adolf Hitler and the attempted coup.
Produced the film from the ZDF , the editorial line of the hour, the officers had Guido Knopp . The ARD , on the other hand, relied on the feature film format, Stauffenberg by Jo Baier was produced for the 60th anniversary in 2004.
action
On March 13, 1943, Henning von Tresckow smuggled a bomb into Hitler's plane in order to kill him over Russia , but the bomb failed. A few days later, on March 21, 1943, Rudolf-Christoph von Gersdorff is supposed to blow up the Führer during a public appearance. But Hitler leaves the exhibition after a very short time. A planned assassination attempt by Axel von dem Bussche cannot take place due to air raids.
The last hope of the conspirators rests on Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg , who detonated a bomb in the Fuehrer's headquarters in Wolfsschanze near Rastenburg on July 20, 1944 . But Hitler survived, as it becomes known later. Only after Stauffenberg's return is the “ Operation Walküre ” triggered, the changed deployment plan for the replacement army. But only in Paris were Gestapo and SS leaders arrested; in Germany there was hesitation. In addition, the radio is not brought under control, the officer assigned to it is tricked by convinced Nazis. The attempt to overthrow failed late in the evening. Fromm has Stauffenberg and other co-conspirators in the Bendler Block executed under the law . The People's Court later sentenced many of those involved to death and had them "executed" by hanging .
Background information
The docudrama is reminiscent of the award-winning TV docudrama Operation Walküre from 1971. Parallel to the scenes from the game, it integrates archive recordings and interviews with eyewitnesses from the war years. These include interviews with Gersdorff and Schlabrendorff from the 1970s, as well as statements from a cousin Stauffenberg, from Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager († 2008), Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist († 2013) and from guards in Berlin and in Wolfschanze, from telephone operators and Secretaries.
The film portrays the events of the last years of the war in great detail and authentically. The German first broadcast took place on June 29, 2004. Since then, the film has been repeated several times on Phoenix .
criticism
“The fluidly staged historical drama combines documents and staged scenes, whereby the ethical aspects of a tyrannicide are discussed and the patriotic sentiment of the assassin comes to the fore. Contemporary witnesses have to be content with the part of the key word, while the explanatory archive pictures are compiled with the game sequences carried out by excellent actors. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Officers' Hour. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed July 18, 2017 .
Web links
- The hour of the officers in the Internet Movie Database (English)