Dietrich Bonhoeffer was accused of taking part in the 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler, an episode portrayed in the film Операция «Валькирия» (2008), after Hans von Dohnanyi had been labelled the 'spiritual leader' of the attempt. There is no evidence linking either man to that specific plot; the accusations were essentially a pretence to remove them both.
In the film, Dietrich Bonhoeffer is arrested at his home and ultimately taken to a small farmhouse where he is hanged. In reality, Bonhoeffer was seized by the SS after a Sunday service and transported to Flossenbürg concentration camp, where he was stripped naked and executed by hanging alongside five other men: Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr; General Hans Oster, Canaris's deputy; General Karl Sack, a military jurist; businessman Theodor Strünck; and German resistance fighter Ludwig Gehre. The fate of his remains is unknown.
The actor portraying Niemoeller, August Diehl, has earlier played the part of an SS Gestapo officer in Бесславные ублюдки (2009) and a German who refused to enlist in the German army in Тайная жизнь (2019).
The assassination attempt portrayed in the film did occur, although in reality Hitler merely hurried through his inspection of the captured munitions rather than inexplicably failing to attend. While there is no concrete evidence that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was directly involved in this or any other plot, he was likely aware of several such attempts.
At first it bore the working title "God's Spy".
The film omits his engagement to Maria von Wedemeyer and any correspondence after his arrest. While held in Tegel Prison, Dietrich and his family exchanged letters and even swapped books; the guards were unaware that those books were used to conceal coded messages. He and Maria continued to correspond during his imprisonment at Tegel, and she was allowed to visit him "fairly regularly, at least once a month." After he was implicated through his association with Abwehr members who plotted the 20 July 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler, Bonhoeffer was moved to the Gestapo's high-security prison at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse and was afforded no further contact with her or his family.
Todd Komarnicki's first feature-film directing outing since Сопротивление (2003).
