Word: german
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...time, was Cruise's affiliation with Scientology. In Germany, where the government provides assistance to organized religions, a 1995 court ruling determined that Scientology was a cult "masquerading as a religion to make money." Moreover, the film's subject is close to the hearts of many in the German military. Cruise is playing Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, a square-jawed young Prussian colonel who tried to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944, but who was executed after his plot failed. Von Stauffenberg was resurrected as a resistance hero to many who rejected the war and its legacy...
Germany appears to like Tom Cruise after all. Earlier this year, the government barred the U.S. actor from filming at a sensitive historical site apparently because of his membership in the Church of Scientology, which the German government considers a cult. But now officials have changed their minds. Cruise's film company is making a movie tentatively titled Valkyrie, about a German officer who tried to assassinate Hitler. The film can now include several scenes shot at the so-called "Bendler Block," a building complex in central Berlin where the officer was executed. Defense Ministry spokesman Thomas Raabe told reporters...
...Stauffenberg played an important role in the military resistance against the Nazi regime and in the Bundeswehr's [the post-war German military's] self-perception," a Ministry spokesman told TIME last June. "A sincere and respectable depiction of the events of the 20th of July and of Stauffenberg is therefore very much in Germany's interest. Tom Cruise, with his Scientology background, is not the right person for this...
...interview in August with the German magazine Bunte, Cruise said: "I bear a great responsibility to the Germans and to a man like Stauffenberg, who has such a deep significance," adding, "I feel it's important to show that there was also resistance within the Nazi ranks...
...decision to open the sensitive site to filming follows a general improvement in German press coverage of Cruise and his film. The mass circulation Bild regularly runs flattering photographs of Katie Holmes, Cruise's wife, and their little girl, Suri, strolling around in Berlin's zoo and visiting Berlin's celebrity polar bear cub, Knut, or strolling in the park. After visiting the set, Frank Schirrmacher, culture editor and co-publisher of the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, argued that the movie "will change Germany more than any other movie of recent decades." He said the film would help underscore...