Tom Cruise started to shoot his controversial film about the 1944 plot to kill Hitler yesterday, even though the producers have yet to find a character to play the Nazi leader. The casting problem is only the latest twist in the $80 million (£40 million) attempt to tell the story of one of Germany’s enduring war heroes.

The film about Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg and his thwarted conspiracy to blow up Hitler has split Germany, with many arguing that Cruise, a champion of Scientology, is unsuitable for the star role.

“He should keep his fingers off my father,” said Berthold von Stauffenberg, the son of the executed officer. But the production is going ahead, with filming starting on the eve of the 63rd anniversary of the July 20 plot.

Stauffenberg placed a bomb in an attaché case close to Hitler. The Nazi leader was wounded but was able to resume command of the Third Reich; the plotters, including many top soldiers, were executed.

A plasterboard replica of Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair bunker has been built in secluded woodland outside Berlin. A replica of Hitler’s plane, a Junkers 52 with a swastika on its tailfin, has been flying around the region and German villagers have been gawping as jack-booted officers walk into their local pub. But the unanswered question is: where is Hitler? The director, Bryan Singer, wanted Cruise’s target to be played by a German, or at least a German-speaking actor like Bruno Ganz, who starred in Downfall, about Hitler’s last ten days. Another widely tipped candidate was Armin Müller-Stahl but he has let it be known that he does not want to be considered, either as Hitler or in the lesser role of the resistance sympathiser General Ludwig Beck. “He has already committed to a film project on Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks,” says the actor’s close friend, Frank-Thomas Gaulin. Now the producers seem to be considering Liev Schreiber, a German-American who starred in the film Hitler: the Rise of Evil (2003). He is something of an evil specialist, having featured in The Omen last year and three versions of Scream.

Despite German fears that the Scientologists were going to hijack their resistance hero, the producers have attracted a high-profile cast. Many, such as Kenneth Branagh, who has previously played an SS officer, have already appeared in Nazi uniforms. Two key actors from Downfall, Thomas Kretschmann and Christian Berkel, have also been recruited.

This may go some way to defusing German criticism when the film is released next year. The film, provisionally called Rubicon, has at least set a debate in motion. Until now Stauffenberg has been seen as a symbol of the Good German who acted on behalf of the other silent critics of Hitler. A commentary in Der Tagesspiegel suggests that Stauffenberg should be seen more broadly — as an officer who broke with his own ethical code to defy his supreme commander because he was leading the country into defeat. “That is a universal, not just a German, message,” said the newspaper.

Playing the part

— Robert Carlyle played Adolf Hitler in the four-hour film Hitler: The Rise of Evil, in 2003. “It was almost as if I took him on and battled against him,” he said

— Bruno Ganz, who played Hitler in the 2004 German film Downfall, told the press at the production’s launch that he needed to feel some compassion for the man in order to play the part

— Derek Jacobi said of playing Hitler in the 1982 television film Inside the Third Reich: “I had to play the man, not the monster”

Sources: www.imdb.com; Times archives

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