Germans can generally cope with foreigners - the British included - associating them with the Nazis. Sometimes, they even laugh about it. But when it comes to the few men who stood up to Adolf Hitler - who even tried to get rid of him - they are ultra-sensitive.
In recent months, two of the most famous figures of German wartime resistance have become the subject of fiction. Through the summer, in Berlin, actor Tom Cruise has been filming Valkyrie, a biopic about Claus von Stauffenberg (right), the man who tried, and failed, to assassinate Hitler in July 1944.
When Cruise began to shoot his film, howls of protest went up in the country. Germans found it hard to stomach the 'Hollywoodisation' of a figure they treat almost as a saint.
The story of the resistance has traditionally provided them with proof that there were some good
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Showing the men who opposed Hitler as less than perfect puts some Germans in a rage, says james woodall |
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men at the heart of Hitler's regime. Any trivialisation of such men insults historical pride. The fact that Cruise is derided for his belief in Scientology - poorly regarded in Germany - only added to the insult.
In England, meanwhile, Justin Cartwright's novel The Song Before it is Sung fictionalises the life and death of another Nazi resister, Adam von Trott. In the late 1930s, von Trott, a lawyer of aristocratic stock, tried to warn British friends in high places of the dangers of Nazism. He failed largely because he was not trusted. In August 1944, he was hanged on the Fuhrer's orders.
Outside Germany, Cartwright's book is receiving plaudits - the LA Times called it 'a quiet masterpiece' - but Germany's leading conservative daily, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, has attacked it.
The FAZ reported last week that surviving von Trott family members have
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Cruise controlled: Hollywood hits back
