The Plot to Assassinate Hitler (1955)
A Film from the Artur Brauner Collection at Our Library
This feature film, styled to resemble a documentary, charts the preparations for and the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944. After the war, a secretary for the Wehrmacht who also worked for the resistance and a captain who only joined the resistance in the days before the attempted assassination recall their experiences.
Where
W. M. Blumenthal Academy, Library
Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 1, 10969 Berlin
Postal address: Lindenstraße 9-14, 10969 Berlin
Artur Brauner hired Falk Harnack, who had fought as a Wehrmacht deserter with the partisans in Greece, to direct the film. While the film Jackboot Mutiny by Georg W. Pabst, released the same year, focuses on the attack's sequence of events, the CCC production also portrays the wider resistance community. It was received with controversy by the German public.
With Wolfgang Preiss, Annemarie Düringer, and Robert Freitag. Directed by Falk Harnack.
Reference
2 x 20. Juli. Die Doppelverfilmung von 1955 (20 July × 2: The Double Filming of 1955). Frankfurt am Main: Deutsches Filminstitut, 2004.
Film Collection: Artur Brauner Collection (21)