How accurate was Valkyrie, the 2008 movie?
AcePilots Home Page On seeing the movie, Valkyrie, about the 20 July plot to kill Hitler, I was struck by the plotters’ apparent failure to secure all communications. I wondered, “Isn’t taking over the radio station and the main telephone switchboard one of the first things they do in a coup?” I also found the array of unfamiliar characters a bit overwhelming. I know my World War Two principals pretty well, but beyond Hitler, von Stauffenberg, Goering, Goebbels, Himmler, and other senior Germans, most of the key players in the movie were unfamiliar. While the movie got high marks for accuracy, I wanted to understand some of the details better, especially the matter of the communications, and the plotters’ steps to secure them. Peter Hoffman’s 1970 book on the topic, The History of the German Resistance, 1933-1945, was very helpful. It is the most authoritative detailed work on the subject. The first thing to realize is that the plot wholly depended on killing Hitler. If the bomb had ki
