User:Umbire the Phantom/Operation Valkyrie

On July 20, 1944, Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia. You may already be hearing the name "Operation Valkyrie" in your head right now.

This... is not that operation. Or at least, it wasn't at the time.

The name "Operation Valkyrie" originally referred to one part of the conspiracy—specificially, it was an emergency plan for government continuity issued to the Territorial Reserve Army of Germany, to be carried out in the event order broke down within the nation. German Army officers General Friedrich Olbricht, Major General Henning von Tresckow and Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg modified the plan with the intention of using it to take control of German cities, disarm the SS, and arrest the Nazi leadership once Hitler had been assassinated ."Operation Valkyrie" soon came to be associated with the entire plot rather than just the government-focused contingencies, especially as World War II became the stuff of contemporary popular culture.

The plot was the culmination of efforts by several groups in the German resistance to overthrow the government, and Hitler's death was specifically required to free German soldiers from their oath of loyalty to him. The apparent aim of it all - besides wresting political control of Germany and its armed forces from the Nazi Party (including the SS) - was to make peace with the Western Allies as soon as possible. Details of the peace initiatives remain unknown, but would have included demands for the confirmation of Germany's extensive annexations of European territory, which were largely considered unrealistic. After lengthy preparation, the plot was activated in 1944... and met with catastrophic failure, as did the military coup d'état that was to follow - the Gestapo arrested more than 7,000 people, 4,980 of whom were executed.


 * Historical Hero Upgrade: Apparently according to Valkyrie, the German officer corps actually cared about Jewish people, was disgusted by their slaughter, and masterminded a plot to assassinate Hitler that would include the closing of KZs. Never mind Stauffenberg's views of the Poles as "an unbelievable rabble" best under the whip, and their country as one filled with "a lot of Jews and a lot of cross-breeds".
 * The movie is wrong in its portraying of Stauffenberg and Co. as democrats, but despite their Anti-Semitic and racist views, they did despise the industrialized murder of the Jews; their planned cabinet consisted mainly of Social-Democrats and Liberals, some of whom actually were in KZs at the time of the coup. So the nature of the upgrade is arguably from the historical Anti-Heroes to Knights in Shining Armor.
 * The German officers who attempted to assassinate Hitler were primarily old-guard conservatives of a monarchist bent; they despised Hitler not only for his crudeness, but also the fact that he was the representative of the "upstart" middle/lower classes. Many turned against him simply because he was losing the war.
 * Various members of the July conspiracy and the Kreisau Circle had different views. The vast majority were monarchists, various members were anti-Semites (though generally of the religious rather than racist variety), most wanted an authoritarian future, but several protested the treatment of Poles and Jews. The film's mistake is portray black and (fairly light) grey morality as Black and White Morality.
 * Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg did get a bit of a Historical Hero Upgrade in the 2008 film Valkyrie, but it is indisputably true that this Swabian Count was a mastermind behind one of the biggest plots to assassinate Adolf Hitler. While he didn't exactly have the highest opinion of non-Germans, and endorsed some planks of the Nazi political platform, he also didn't just go along quietly after the Nazis crossed the Moral Event Horizon. Many of the other real-life plotters were aristocrats of one stripe or another as well.