July 21, 2007: Every year on July 20 Germans are reminded that World War II might have ended differently. On this date in the summer of 1944, Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg placed his attaché case with a bomb under the table near Adolf Hitler in a conference room in Hitler's Prussian military hideout "Wolfsschanze". Later the person sitting next to Stauffenberg moved it because the attaché case was in his way. He put it on the other side of a large table leg, farther away from Hitler. When the bomb went off, Hitler was not seriously injured. Stauffenberg and a number of his co-conspirators were later executed in Berlin.

Yesterday the customary speeches were given and a wreath was placed at the site of Stauffenberg's execution. This year, the July 20th ceremonies may have seemed a bit different. The reason is a new movie being produced about the assassination attempt. Filming began on Thursday in the Brandenburg forest southeast of Berlin, and the actor chosen to portray Graf von Stauffenberg is none other than Hollywood's Tom Cruise. The "Wolfsschanze" was reconstructed in the forest as one of the sets, and an old East Germany airfield nearby will be used as another set for Stauffenberg's flight to Berlin in a Junkers JU-52.

Two JU-52 planes have been chartered from a Swiss company for the shooting and were "outfitted" with German World War II markings to make them look authentic. During their test flights at the set the planes raised a few eyebrows among nearby residents. More eyebrows have been raised, however, over Cruise's involvement in the movie. Cruise is a member of Scientology, a group largely viewed in Germany as a "pseudo-church" that is seen as using mind control and pressure tactics to attract and keep its "members", who are generally considered to be wealthy individuals being bilked by the sect. More than one of Germany's federal states has Scientology on its watch list as a potentially dangerous sect.

Having a well-known Scientology member play the role of Graf von Stauffenberg doesn't appeal to everyone. The only member of Stauffenberg's group of consipirators still living, Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager, told the magazine "Vanity Fair" that he is not against having Cruise portray Stauffenberg as long as Cruise "can make a distinction between the sect he represents and the movie. But if those two were to be mixed in some subtle way and used to benefit Scientology, then I would be opposed [to Cruise's involvement] 100 percent." Boeselager was the one who got the explosives for Stauffenberg's bomb in 1944. In remarks made to the "Süddeutsche Zeitung", Stauffenberg's oldest son Berthold voiced his disapproval over Cruise playing the role of his dad by saying, "I don't like the idea of an avowed Scientologist playing the role of my father."

Cruise's colleague Armin Mueller-Stahl, who was reported to be one of the candidates to play Hitler in the film, called Germans critical of Cruise's involvement "inhibited, small-minded and uptight," adding that an actor's performance can't be judged until the film is finished. Cruise's performance in the movie may not be as interesting for some Germans as the fact that tax revenues are being used to subsidize the movie. The German Federal Film Fund is providing 4.8 million euros in funding to United Artists, a sizeable check for a film whose main star represents an American sect that itself collects millions from its members.