Valkyrie

We Netflixed "Valkyrie," the Tom Cruise-Kenneth Branagh-Tom Wilkinson-Bill Nighy-Mr. Collins (make that David Bamber) movie about Col. Claus von Stauffenberg and the 1944 plot to turn Adolf Hitler into mincemeat. Obviously the plot did not succeed. Four people died in the bombing and trials and executions were conducted for the conspirators.

I didn't stay for the whole movie. It depressed me. Why I should care 65 years after the fact, I don't know. But I wanted things to turn out differently. I wanted the plot to succeed. I wanted the army to rid itself of the burden of the Nazis. Once Hitler arrived on the scene, there were, what, about 30 attempts to stop him by violent means (or ideas of violence).

When you consider the man-made disasters that people have inflicted on this world, Hitler ranks right up there. I'd put him in the Top Five, perhaps No. 2.