Cruise film causes Germany controversy
Updated on 22 July 2007
Historians say a Tom Cruise film about a failed bid to assassinate Adolf Hitler may trivialise the events.
The Mission Impossible star will play Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, who planted a briefcase bomb in the 'Wolf's Lair' bunker in 1944.
The bomb killed four, but Hitler escaped largely unhurt.
Van Stauffenberg and his fellow conspirators were executed but Germany has been anxious to stop anyone from misrepresenting the conspiracy.
The production has been dogged by opposition from German government ministries, both due to Cruise's adherence to Scientology, which Berlin considers a cult and not a religion, and because of the conspiracy's significance regarding the post-war rebirth and international rehabilitation of Germany.
After the war the plotters were first seen as traitors by much of German society, while later generations believed their legacy was tainted by the close links to the Nazi military machine.
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