Valkyrie is a 2008 historical political thriller film directed by Bryan Singer, written by Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander, starring Tom Cruise. The film is set in Nazi Germany during World War II and depicts the 20 July plot in 1944 by German army officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler and to use the Operation Valkyrie national emergency plan to take control of the country. The film was released by American studio United Artists and  stars Cruise as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, one of the key plotters. The supporting cast includes Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Eddie Izzard, Terence Stamp, and Tom Wilkinson.

Cruise's casting caused controversy among German politicians and members of the von Stauffenberg family due to the actor's practice of Scientology, which is viewed with suspicion in Germany. Because of this, the filmmakers initially had difficulty setting up filming locations in Germany, but they were later given access to locations such as Berlin's historic Bendlerblock. German newspapers and filmmakers supported the film and its intention to spread global awareness of von Stauffenberg's plot.

The film changed release dates several times, from as early as June 27, 2008, to as late as February 13, 2009. The changing calendar and poor response to United Artists's initial marketing campaign drew criticism about the film's viability, and followed by a positive test screening, Valkyries release in North America was ultimately changed to December 25, 2008, and was opened in Germany on January 22, 2009: United Artists renewed its marketing campaign to reduce its focus on Cruise and to highlight Singer's credentials. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and grossed nearly $201.5 million worldwide.

Plot
During World War II, Wehrmacht Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg is stationed in Tunisia, where he becomes increasingly disillusioned with the future of Germany under Hitler. His battalion comes under attack by P-40 fighter-bombers of the No. 3 Squadron RAAF, Desert Air Force. Stauffenberg is severely injured in the air raid and is evacuated home to Germany, where he loses his left eye, his right hand, and two fingers on his left hand.

Meanwhile, Hitler visits his military headquarters on the Eastern Front. General Henning von Tresckow attempts to assassinate Hitler by smuggling a timebomb disguised as a box containing a bottle of Cointreau onto his plane. The bomb fails to detonate, and Hitler's plane lands safely in Berlin. Shortly afterwards, resistance member General Hans Oster is arrested by the Gestapo. While recuperating, Stauffenberg is recruited by General Friedrich Olbricht to take Oster's place in the German Resistance, which includes Tresckow, General Ludwig Beck, Dr. Carl Goerdeler, and Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben.

Stauffenberg proposes using Operation Valkyrie, which involves the deployment of the Reserve Army in a national emergency, as a means to take control of the country. The plotters redraft the plan's orders so as to enable the dismantling of the Nazi regime after assassinating Hitler. Stauffenberg's promotion within the Reserve Army grants him direct access to Hitler, who approves the redrafted plan without fully examining the alterations. Realizing that only General Friedrich Fromm, the head of the Reserve Army, can initiate Valkyrie, they offer him a position as head of the Wehrmacht; but Fromm, although agreeing to remain silent on the matter, declines to be directly involved.

Stauffenberg is ordered to assassinate both Hitler and Himmler at the Wolf's Lair. He persuades General Fellgiebel to cut off communications after the attempt. On July 15, 1944, Stauffenberg attends a strategy meeting at the Wolf's Lair with a bomb but does not receive permission to proceed as Himmler is absent. Meanwhile, the Reserve Army is mobilized by Olbricht. Stauffenberg leaves with the bomb and the Reserve Army is ordered to stand down. Fromm threatens Olbricht and Stauffenberg that he will arrest them if they try to control the Reserve Army again; Stauffenberg berates the plotters for their indecisiveness and condemns Goerdeler. When Goerdeler demands that Stauffenberg be relieved, Beck informs him that the SS has issued a warrant for his arrest, and that he must leave the country immediately.

On July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg and his adjutant Lieutenant von Haeften return to the Wolf's Lair. Due to the warm weather, the conference is being held in an open-window summer barrack, minimizing their bomb's potential effectiveness. Stauffenberg places the briefcase containing the bomb close to Hitler before leaving. Officer Heinz Brandt moves the case behind a table leg, inadvertently shielding Hitler. When the bomb explodes, Stauffenberg is certain that Hitler is dead and flees, managing to bluff his way past security checkpoints and returning to Berlin.

Olbricht refuses to mobilize the Reserve Army without confirmation that Hitler is dead; but Colonel von Quirnheim, one of the plotters, forges his signature and issues the orders. With Valkyrie underway, the plotters order the arrest of Nazi party leaders and SS officers, convincing lower officers that the Party and the SS are staging a coup, and soldiers begin to take control of the ministries. Rumors surface that Hitler survived the blast, but Stauffenberg dismisses them as SS propaganda. Having learned from Field Marshal Keitel that Hitler is still alive, Fromm refuses to join the plotters, resulting in them detaining him. They also detain General Joachim von Kortzfleisch after he refuses to take part in the operation and tries to disrupt the plot by reminding the conspirators and workers of their oath of loyalty to Hitler.

Major Otto Ernst Remer of the Reserve Army prepares to arrest Goebbels, but he stops when Goebbels connects him by phone to Hitler. Recognizing the voice on the other end, Remer realizes that the Reserve Army has been duped. Soon, SS officers are released, and the plotters are besieged inside the Bendlerblock. The headquarters staff flee, but the resistance leaders are arrested. Attempting to save himself, Fromm convenes an impromptu court martial, during which he places Beck under arrest, and sentences von Quirnheim, Olbricht, von Haeften, and Stauffenberg to death. The ringleaders are executed by firing squad; Beck is given a pistol and commits suicide; Tresckow kills himself in a forest by holding a grenade to his throat; Witzleben and Goerdeler are sentenced in show trials and hanged.

A post-script displays the text of the German resistance memorial.

Cast

 Tom Cruise as Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, the German army Colonel who was instrumental in the conspiracy to assassinate Adolf Hitler: Bryan Singer saw von Stauffenberg as "very much a humanist", saying, "He understood his role as a colonel, but he also understood that the Nazis were doing terrible, terrible, terrible things." Having directed Superman Returns, Singer compared von Stauffenberg's dual identity as loyal colonel and conspirator to Superman and his civilian identity Clark Kent. Cruise had wanted to work with Singer since they met at the premiere for Mission: Impossible, and the actor was enticed by the script's background, the truth of which struck him as a surprise. The actor described von Stauffenberg's heroism: "I thought of it in terms of what [von] Stauffenberg represents. He was someone who realized that he had to take the steps that ultimately cost him his life. ... He recognized what was at stake." Cruise felt von Stauffenberg did not think of himself as a hero. The actor prepared for the role for eight months by hiring a researcher, studying history books, and speaking with some of von Stauffenberg's family. Since von Stauffenberg lost his left eye, right hand and two fingers on his left hand in an Allied attack in Tunisia, Cruise affected the same disabilities to practice dressing, moving items and writing. Cruise initially found the eyepatch difficult to work with but acknowledged that von Stauffenberg had to live with this discomfort.
 Kenneth Branagh as Major General Henning von Tresckow: Branagh differed physically from the real von Tresckow, who was balding, but Singer said, "if you look at [von] Tresckow's energy, he had an honesty that Branagh has."
 Bill Nighy as General of Infantry Friedrich Olbricht: Nighy was cast to give a sympathetic quality, so Olbricht would not be the "fall guy". Nighy wanted to convey Olbricht as conflicted between complaining about Hitler's regime and actually doing something about it. The actor described his portrayal, "One of the most disconcerting things imaginable is to put on a Nazi uniform. It's so associated with evil that it took me several days to get used to being in costume."
 Terence Stamp as Colonel General Ludwig Beck: Singer met Stamp to discuss playing a part in X-Men, having admired him for portraying General Zod in Superman II. Stamp endured the Blitz as a child and aided Singer in staging a scene where the von Stauffenbergs hide from Allied bombings. The actor described his approach to acting: he was not the sort of actor who puts on a mask; rather, he tries to find the place within himself that resonates with the characters he portrays saying that "There has to be a kind of non-judgmental discernment, so when I'm playing villains, they don't think they're particularly villains." Singer said of his direction of Stamp as the heroic and selfless Beck that he sought to find "the part of Terence that would be prepared to fall on his sword for certain ideals" just as Beck had in fact done after being arrested with his co-conspirators for treason.
 Tom Wilkinson as General Friedrich Fromm, the head of Germany's Reserve Army: Wilkinson was cast to make the treacherous Fromm sympathetic.
 Carice van Houten as Nina Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg, von Stauffenberg's wife: The filmmakers were impressed by her performance in Black Book, and argued she could give a strong performance with minimal dialogue. Screenwriter Nathan Alexander spoke to von Stauffenberg's relatives and noted that, although Nina and Claus never directly spoke about the plot, "in a sense it was all they talked about".
 Kevin McNally as Dr. Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, a German politician who intended to become chancellor of Germany after a successful coup
 David Schofield as Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben, a retired general and one of the plotters: Singer and producer Christopher McQuarrie were impressed by Schofield's professionalism and dedication to show up on set for scenes without his character, and the filmmakers expanded his role as a result.
 Christian Berkel as Colonel Albrecht Ritter Mertz von Quirnheim, a plotter with knowledge of explosives
 Jamie Parker as Lieutenant Werner von Haeften, an adjutant to von Stauffenberg who helps the colonel carry out the plot
 Eddie Izzard as General of Signal Corps Erich Fellgiebel, a German signals officer and plotter, responsible for communications at Hitler's bunker Wolf's Lair
 David Bamber as Adolf Hitler, the Führer of Germany: During Bamber's audition for the role, Singer was struck by Bamber's eyes and stated that Bamber had a quality that resonated with Hitler.
 Thomas Kretschmann as Major Otto Ernst Remer, commanding officer of Großdeutschland guard battalion: Kretschmann was the original choice to play von Stauffenberg before Singer joined the production, when McQuarrie was intending to direct.
 Harvey Friedman as Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda and a member of Hitler's inner circle
 Kenneth Cranham as Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, the head of the OKW and a member of Hitler's inner circle
 Matthias Freihof as Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS and a member of Hitler's inner circle
 Waldemar Kobus as Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorf, chief of the Berlin police who pledges his and men's assistance in carrying out the plot
 Halina Reijn as Margarethe von Oven, secretary in the Bendlerblock: Reijn co-starred with fellow Dutchwoman Carice van Houten in Black Book.
 Werner Daehn as Major Ernst John von Freyend
 Tom Hollander as Colonel Heinz Brandt
 Bernard Hill as a general working with von Stauffenberg during the Tunisian campaign: While he is not named in the film, the 10th Panzer Division's commander while von Stauffenberg was serving with it was Lieutenant General Friedrich Freiherr von Broich.
 Ian McNeice as the composite "Pompous General" who attempts to disrupt the coup headquarters: Though the general is not named in the film, McQuarrie and Alexander said the character was based on General Joachim von Kortzfleisch, who tried to disrupt the coup in the same fashion.
 Danny Webb as Captain Haans
 Chris Larkin as Sergeant Helm
 Gerhard Haase-Hindenberg as Hermann Göring
 Anton Algrang as Albert Speer
 Helmut Stauss as judge Roland Freisler
 Matthew Burton as Lieutenant General Adolf Heusinger
 Philipp von Schulthess as Major General Henning von Tresckow's aide: The actor is the grandson of Claus von Stauffenberg.

Patrick Wilson was originally cast in Valkyrie but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts and other unspecified reasons. Stephen Fry was also offered a role in the film but was unable to participate.

Some of the non-German actors initially experimented with German accents, but Singer discarded the idea, instead instructing them to adopt neutral accents that "[wouldn't] distract from the story". Singer added he was not making a docu-drama and wanted to make the story engaging.

Production

Development
In 2002, Christopher McQuarrie visited Berlin while researching another project and visited the memorial to von Stauffenberg at the Bendlerblock. Researching the 20 July plot, he was moved and fascinated by the fact that the conspirators were fully aware of what would happen if they failed their assassination attempt, and he wanted to make their story more well-known. He approached Nathan Alexander to co-write the film, and Alexander began researching the project. McQuarrie sought to model the story after the 2001 TV film Conspiracy, which depicted the Wannsee Conference at which the Nazis planned the Final Solution. (Branagh, McNally and McNeice had all starred in Conspiracy.) He also sought to direct the film, until he realized that adequate financing would only be secured with Bryan Singer directing.

After Singer completed the three major productions X-Men (2000), X2 (2003) and Superman Returns (2006), he sought a smaller project before embarking upon the eventually aborted sequel to Superman Returns. Singer and McQuarrie had often made World War II films in their backyards while growing up in New Jersey, and Singer had later dealt with Nazi subject matter in Apt Pupil and X-Men. Singer first learned of the plot in the early 1980s when his mother visited Bonn and met Freya von Moltke, widow of Helmuth von Moltke, a founder of the Kreisau Circle resistance group. After learning of McQuarrie and Alexander's screenplay and signing on to direct Valkyrie, Singer read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer to gain deeper understanding of Nazi Germany's political landscape, and also met with one of Hitler's bodyguards, Rochus Misch, who was the last person to leave the bunker where Hitler committed suicide. The creative team acknowledged the ambiguity over the enigmatic von Stauffenberg's true motivation, but Singer and McQuarrie judged him to be a man of ethics just from what he did. Though McQuarrie sought for Valkyrie to be similar to Conspiracy, Singer had bigger ambitions for the film, wanting it to be more than "old men in rooms, talking". Singer looked back on his decision, saying, "The true story had all the makings of a classic assassination thriller. ... I knew if I could keep the audience with [von] Stauffenberg, with his mission, they would go with the flow and be less inclined to start hypothesising on things from history."

McQuarrie suggested they bring the project to United Artists partners Paula Wagner and Tom Cruise, who immediately agreed to finance the film in March 2007. Singer invited Tom Cruise to take the lead role, which Cruise accepted. Cruise had been provided a picture of von Stauffenberg, in which the actor noticed a similarity in his profile with the German colonel, drawing him to the role. The director and the screenwriter initially anticipated Valkyrie as a "small" film with a budget of under US$20 million and to be completed within several months, but Cruise's interest in playing von Stauffenberg made Singer realize his involvement could broaden the film's publicity and therefore its budget. The film's budget was then raised to $60 million. The director considered calling the film Operation Valkyrie, not wanting to use a generic action film title. The film's English-language title was ultimately titled Valkyrie because Singer felt that the film was about more than the operation and liked its connection to Wagner's music.

Germany's Finance Ministry had originally denied the producers the right to film at Bendlerblock, explaining that the site should be treated as a "place of remembrance and mourning" which would "lose dignity if we were to exploit it as a film set". The producers were also denied a request to film at a Berlin police station by the department, citing adverse impact to the facility. The German government eventually had a change of heart concerning the Bendlerblock site and gave permission for filmmakers to film there. A United Artists spokesman said that they were "very grateful" for the decision, saying that the site "[had] always been important to us symbolically, creatively and for the sake of historical authenticity" and that the company had been in continuous talks with the German government in order to clear up any misconceptions about the nature of the film. The Memorial to the German Resistance also helped filmmakers by permitting them access to their materials and documents. German military pageantry was shaped by referring to the recorded material and input from military advisers.

Writing
McQuarrie and Alexander researched first-hand accounts, photos, newsreels and texts. They also examined Gestapo and SS records, as the organizations had been meticulous in reconstructing the events of the conspiracy in its aftermath. A timeline of events was created, from which McQuarrie and Alexander shaped the script. After production began in Berlin, the writers were able to visit locations and meet with relatives of the conspirators; these meetings informed changes made to the script during filming.

The initial scenes of von Stauffenberg in Tunisia were written to provide historical context to the rest of the film. The scenes were written with the intention of communicating the complexity of the situation—including references to the Holocaust—without being too obvious. The writers also wanted to evoke the spirit of the resistance and convey the ongoing disgust of the German officers. McQuarrie and Alexander found the most difficult task was in conveying the motives of the conspirators; von Stauffenberg especially remained an enigma, though the writers believed he and the other resistance members to be propelled by their moral outrage. McQuarrie and Alexander attempted to include a scene of von Stauffenberg's witnessing an atrocity, but because he was a supply officer he had little exposure to many of those that occurred. Though he witnessed some—such as the starvation of the Russians—they believed it difficult to dramatize von Stauffenberg's being compelled to action by "field reports". They also had difficulties with Hitler's portrayal; in researching his speeches, they struggled to find one in which he made overtly villainous statements.

Filming
Filming began on July 18, 2007, in Berlin. Production of Valkyrie was then estimated to have a budget of US$80 million, with two-thirds to be spent in Germany. The  issued €4.8 million (US$6.64 million) to United Artists to assist with production. The filmmakers received permission to film at Tempelhof International Airport's Columbia Haus, a former Nazi jail for political prisoners. Production also involved World War II planes with swastikas painted on the sides, practicing in the airspace above Brandenburg. Around 70 sets were built for the film. The filmmakers also shot on location at the former Reich Air Ministry Building and the exterior of the house at which von Stauffenberg stayed with his brother.

A replica set of Hitler's Eastern Front Headquarters Wolf's Lair was constructed  south of Berlin, though the headquarters' actual location was in modern-day northeastern Poland. It took twelve weeks to build. Filming took place in some of the houses that were used to hide the bombs in 1944. The interior of Hitler's Bavarian residence Berghof was replicated using film shot by Hitler's consort Eva Braun and designing models of furniture possessed by secretive collectors. The production also made use of surviving Nazi relics, including furniture used by the Reich Air Ministry and objects that once adorned Hitler's desk. Nazi symbols, the display of which is heavily restricted in Germany, were used at several locations; while the filmmakers gave forewarning to local residents, a passerby witnessing the use of swastikas during filming in Berlin filed an official complaint with the city. Similar charges were filed against the owners of sites set up to show Nazi displays for the film's production. Filming also took place at Babelsberg Studios. During filming on August 19, 2007, eleven people were hurt when the side panel of a truck they were riding broke, with one person requiring hospitalization. They demanded $11 million in compensation, rejecting a settlement offered by the studio.

Before filming the scene of von Stauffenberg's execution at Bendlerblock, Tom Cruise led the cast and crew in holding a moment of silence "out of respect for the place and out of respect for the life achievement of these people who were executed there", according to actor Christian Berkel. After filming of the scene was completed, the footage was sent to be developed for the post-production process at a processing plant in Germany. The wrong chemical was accidentally used in development, damaging the film and requiring the crew to seek permission from the government to re-shoot the scenes. Permission was granted and a spokesman for the film indicated the schedule and budget had not been affected.

Singer and cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel chose different styles for the separate halves of the film. Elegant camerawork such as cranes were used for the build-up to the attempt on Hitler's life, while the second half is frantic with handheld cinematography as the plotters are hunted down. The colors in the film also become more intense as the story continues. Sigel focused on red, the color of the Nazi flag, which he felt represented the violence of their ideology. Singer looked towards thrillers of the 1940s and home movies shot by Eva Braun for inspiration. Shooting scenes at night was difficult because presenting the era accurately required blackouts. Sigel noted that, in real life, car headlights were used for the firing squad to aim at and execute the plotters in the Bendlerblock. Singer chose to shoot in 1:85 aspect ratio and, since filming took place in Germany, the director used Arriflex cameras with Zeiss lenses.

One Ju-Air Junkers JU-52, registration HB-HOT, which crashed near Piz Segnas in the Swiss Alps on 4 August 2018, had been used for the filming.

The Tunisia battle sequence that opened the film was the last major sequence filmed. The filmmakers wanted to avoid the appearance that von Stauffenberg wanted to kill Hitler because of the injuries he suffered in the battle. They began a rough cut in October 2007 and, between then and June 2008, there were several test screenings without the battle sequence. By June 2008, the filmmakers felt that they knew how to adequately frame the characters when filming the battle sequence. Singer scouted Jordan and Spain for locations, but the candidates did not meet the aesthetic and economic criteria. The Cougar Buttes desert in California was ultimately chosen to represent Tunisia. Since the production budget was adjusted to provide visual effects to make von Stauffenberg's injuries realistic, not enough was left for solely computer-generated fighter planes. Singer instead used two P-40 Warhawks in the battle sequence. The budget increased in the course of production due to the filming in Germany, the rebuilding of sets, and lost shooting days, but German tax rebates tempered the growth. The studio reported its final production budget to be $75 million, but competing studios believed it to be closer to $90 million.

Visual effects

The film's visual effects were created by Sony Pictures Imageworks, who collaborated with Bryan Singer on Superman Returns. The company's two key goals were to accurately portray von Stauffenberg's injuries and to create a 1943 period look to Berlin. With many explosions and stunts seen in the film performed practically, the majority of the 800 computer-generated effects shots were used to portray von Stauffenberg's injuries. A digital version of Cruise's hand was designed, and technicians rotoscoped the hand in every movement it could make so the missing fingers were erased in the process. With many close-ups of von Stauffenberg's hand with missing fingers, the injuries were textured to look like actual scars, particularly based on surgical procedures from 1943. Cruise asked for advice on how to best move his hands so visual effects would be easier to apply, but some challenges, such as von Stauffenberg getting dressed on his own, were inescapable. According to supervisor Richard R. Hoover, "We know from historical accounts that von Stauffenberg didn't stick his hands in his pockets to try and hide his injuries."

For the battle sequence in North Africa, two real Curtiss P-40 Kittyhawks in Desert Air Force paint schemes were used, accompanied by cloned images of them or by computer-generated planes. In scenes showing squadrons of soldiers, digital extras were not used; instead, photography of real squadrons was cloned. Sony Pictures Imageworks also digitally expanded details on stage locations and at practical locations. The exterior of Hitler's Bavarian residence Berghof was digitally created, since little was left of the original structure, and the creation was superimposed on a shot of a ski area in Austria. In Berlin itself, city officials helped reduce the need for visual effects by removing power poles and modern lighting over the weekend when filming took place and restoring the equipment by the start of the new week.

There was widespread questioning in some corners of the press as to whether, in order to make himself look more muscular and of ample girth, Cruise had employed butt pads during filming. The star eventually addressed and denied the suppositions.

Editing and scoring

As with his previous collaborations with Bryan Singer on The Usual Suspects, Superman Returns and X2, editor-composer John Ottman edited the film without a temp track, noting if the film was working well without music, it was becoming a strong product. Since Valkyrie drew its inspirations from previous World War II films like The Great Escape (1963), Where Eagles Dare (1968), Patton (1970), and Midway (1976), filmmakers initially had a cut where title cards introduced characters and their roles. When the cut was test screened with an American audience, the title cards were removed due to complaints that there were too many characters to follow. He said the challenge on Valkyrie was to create tension from dialogue scenes, and he often reshaped scenes to do this: moments rather than whole scenes were cut from the film. Being historically accurate meant Ottman was more restricted in reorganizing scenes, but he was able to choose what lines and close-ups he could focus on. Ottman said the scene he was most saddened to delete, because he had been looking forward to scoring it, was one where von Stauffenberg dances with his wife.

Ottman originally planned for a minimal score to Valkyrie, but found that despite the film's dialogue-heavy nature, the film needed music to create a thriller atmosphere. He described the new approach as similar to his work in The Usual Suspects where "in order to keep the tension going in a scene where there's really a lot of dialogue, we had to rely on a lot of score", but the score is done in a "pulsating, subliminal way" and not an "expository score", but more like a "running pulse going through the movie". He excluded snare drums or trumpets, in the percussion and brass-led music, which are the changes made by Singer and Ottman, before scoring. He had to compose music for the North African battle before the scene was shot, because booking space to record film music is difficult. Although he found that composing music based on the script results in overlong pieces, he felt the music worked out fine for the sequence. The film's end credits piece, "They'll Remember You", is an original composition, though the lyrics were based on the poem "Wanderer's Nightsong" by German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. An end piece entitled "Long Live Sacred Germany" was inspired by Adagio for Strings. Ottman described the original version of the track as a "three minute drone that I slowed down with these two Tuvan throat singers, the whole thing was this horribly dark, morbid piece [which] left you cold". He further composed a metallic motif for Hitler, which was formed by low strings and a piano cluster.

German response to production

In June 2007, prior to production, a German Defence Ministry spokesperson said that filming of Valkyrie would not be allowed at the country's military sites if protagonist Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg was portrayed by Tom Cruise, due to the actor's adherence to Scientology, which is considered a dangerous cult by the German authorities. The spokesperson further indicated that the ministry had not at that time received official filming requests from Valkyries producers. Colonel Stauffenberg's eldest child, retired Bundeswehr general Berthold Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, also voiced concerns over Cruise's portrayal of his father, saying that he would not oppose the film's production, but hoped that Cruise would drop the role. "I fear that only terrible kitsch will come out of the project. It's bound to be rubbish," he said. "Cruise should keep his hands off my father." Later in the month, the ministry reversed its stance and welcomed production of Valkyrie.

The initial controversy reportedly stemmed from German member of parliament Antje Blumenthal, an authority on cults for the Christian Democratic Union and well-known opponent of Scientology, who had claimed that the German Defence Minister had assured her that the film would not be shot in the country. In addition, Cruise's affiliation with Scientology was also criticized by junior politicians such as Rudolf Köberle, the state secretary for interior issues in the state of Baden-Württemberg. Thomas Gandow, a spokesperson for the German Protestant Church, said Cruise's involvement in the film would "have the same propaganda advantages for Scientology as the 1936 Olympics had for the Nazis" and compared the actor to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.

The film subsequently found local support in Germany. Director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck saw that Cruise's involvement would promote awareness of a neglected story, and veteran German actor Armin Mueller-Stahl also gave his support to the production. A grandson of Colonel von Stauffenberg, who appeared in the film as an assistant, hailed Cruise's professionalism and indicated that most of his family were curious to see the finished product. In September 2007, when the Defence Ministry initially denied permission for filming at the Bendlerblock memorial, support for the film came in from German newspaper columnists and filmmakers, including director Wolfgang Petersen and Frank Schirrmacher, journalist and co-publisher of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Schirrmacher visited the set and agreed that the film would advance global awareness of the German Resistance. Ultimately granting access to the Bendlerblock after reviewing the script, the Defence Ministry said it showed that "barbarism didn't triumph but led to the founding of a democratic Germany". Ursula Caberta, who is in charge of a German government office which monitors Scientology, was disappointed in the ministry's decision, saying, "Tom Cruise [is] a figurehead of an anti-constitutional organization, and he should be treated that way."

A spokesperson for Scientology in Berlin, Sabine Weber, said in August 2007 that she was "shocked" by German politicians' criticisms, adding that it was a "call to discrimination" against someone based on their religious beliefs. In the same month, Cruise suggested to his critics that they see the film before denouncing it. In October 2007, fellow Valkyrie actor Kenneth Branagh said that the issue had been "largely exaggerated" and that the German official who initially incited the complaints contacted the production one week into filming to apologise, after reading the script and realising he had misinterpreted the film's plot.

In November 2007, the head of the German Resistance Memorial Centre warned against any potential "myth formation" around von Stauffenberg as a result of the film, urging that any understanding of the Colonel must also be informed by the fact that he had been loyal to the Nazi cause for most of his military career. In the same month Cruise was given a Bambi courage award, presented by German media company Hubert Burda Media, "for tackling a story that had never been covered by Hollywood before".

Klaus Berg of the Hamburg Chronicle stated that "... It is a well-known cliche that American film makers prefer to provide their audiences with a happy ending. Here, a viewer with even the most superficial and rudimentary knowledge of the history of the Second World War and of the National Socialist Regime would know from the very outset that a happy ending is out of the question, that all the protagonists' efforts and plans are doomed to end in bitter failure. Knowing this, I was surprised to realize how deeply I was caught up in the tension of the plot, how desperately I was hoping against hope that Cruise and his fellows would after all succeed. ... No, not for one minute during the entire film did I think about Scientology."

Marketing
Valkyrie was intended to be a high-profile film that would jump-start United Artists, the host studio partly owned by Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner. Pressure was placed on Valkyrie to do well since an earlier United Artists film featuring Cruise, Lions for Lambs, performed poorly in the box office, and the studio's planned production of Oliver Stone's Pinkville was canceled. The film changed release dates multiple times. It was originally slated to be released on August 8, 2008, then moved up earlier to June 27, 2008. The film was then held off to October 3, 2008, to avoid competition from WALL-E and Wanted, and to enable the late filming of the North African battle sequence. The October date was also originally chosen to increase the film's chances of awards success. In April 2008, the release date was pushed back to February 13, 2009, with the studio citing the early fall schedule as too crowded with Academy Award prospects. Valkyrie would have taken advantage of the lucrative President's Day weekend, after The Wolfman and The Pink Panther 2 were moved from this date.

In July 2008, United Artists president of worldwide marketing Dennis Rice was replaced by Michael Vollman, who was tasked to develop a marketing strategy for the "troubled" Valkyrie, which had been "battered by constant media sniping". Under Vollman, by August 2008, the release date was changed to December 26, 2008, with reports citing commercial reasons for the move after a successful test screening. (The film was ultimately released on Christmas Day, December 25, 2008.) The release date was before the end of December, which "crucially" helped the film with a home distribution deal with the subscription channel Showtime. In the same month of August, Paula Wagner left her position with the studio during the film's post-production. The changing release date for Valkyrie drew criticism about the viability of United Artists, and the studio aimed to combat the criticism leading up to the film's eventual release.  In addition, the first theatrical trailer, released early in 2008, received "mixed buzz" over Tom Cruise's portraying von Stauffenberg with an American accent. The trade paper Variety described the trailer as "dour and ... like it was selling a talky stage play with a cast of old British actors". Images of Tom Cruise as Colonel von Stauffenberg that surfaced during filming were widely ridiculed. Terry Press, a marketing consultant with the studio, said that Valkyrie had been wrongly labeled as "the Tom Cruise eye-patch movie".

As the December release date approached, United Artists launched a campaign to reform public perception of the film, downplaying the role of Tom Cruise as a German war hero and instead pitching Valkyrie as "a character-driven suspense thriller". The new campaign also played up the reputation of director Bryan Singer, who had directed the thrillers The Usual Suspects (1995) and Apt Pupil (1998). Terry Press urged foregoing an awards campaign for the film; Cruise agreed with the consultant, while Singer was disappointed about the decision. Instead, the studio focused on audience appeal in a competitive time frame in late December. A second theatrical trailer and a new poster were unveiled in October 2008 by United Artists to renew Valkyrie'''s viability with audiences and accolades. The poster was designed to have flashy graphics and to emulate the posters from the war films The Great Escape (1963) and The Dirty Dozen (1967) in having a team as a central visual. The team element was based on market research from the studio's focus groups who indicated that they liked Cruise as "a character leading a group of people toward solving a problem". The new trailer accentuated action, and was widely considered an improvement over the first trailer. An internal MGM memo reported the reception of the trailer by online communities to be "significantly favorable" compared to the previous trailer. The studio sought two demographic quadrants: males over 35 years old as well as younger males. Since United Artists reported that the film cost $75 million to make and that $60 million was spent on marketing, the studio faced high financial stakes. The film also tested the determination of its distributor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the mettle of Cruise as a superstar.

Release

Theatrical run

Prior to Valkyries December 2008 release, concern was raised about how the film would be received in the holiday season due to its Nazi subject matter, along with related films The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The Reader, Defiance and Good. Advertising Age wrote during the economic crisis of 2008, "The depressing state of the economy and an alarmingly low level of understanding of the Holocaust among American youth point to a tough road for such serious fare."Valkyrie opened on Christmas Day, December 25, 2008, in 2,711 theaters in the United States and Canada. The film grossed an estimated $8.5 million for the opening day. In the four-day holiday weekend, Valkyrie grossed an estimated $30 million, ranking fourth at the box office with $7,942 per theater. Pamela McClintock of Variety cited the weekend performance as "a victory for United Artists and MGM"; Gitesh Pandya of Rotten Tomatoes said the haul represented a "big hit" for the studio. Studio research revealed that audiences averaged 55% male and 66% over 25. Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers, said that the weekend gross "totally robs the nay-sayers of their ability to deem it a flop", believing that Cruise's comic performance in the previous summer's Tropic Thunder helped audiences embrace the star again. Dergarabedian also ascribed the better-than-expected performance to the studio's marketing of Valkyrie as a thriller film.  Since Cruise was collecting a salary of $20 million against 20% of the backend (revenue gathered after the completion of a film) and MGM/UA investment was capped at $60 million, United Artists sold the film to several foreign territories to make money back.

The European premiere was held at the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin on January 20, 2009. Valkyrie commercially opened in over a dozen territories outside the United States and Canada on the weekend of January 23, 2009, including a premiere in Germany on January 22. The film ranked first in the international box office, grossing over $13 million. It placed first in Germany, Australia, and the Netherlands and placed second in the United Kingdom, Austria and South Korea. Valkyries highest-grossing territory was Germany, where it earned $3.7 million from 689 locations, averaging $5,311 per screen. The German opening was considered "a chart-topping yet unspectacular start", barely edging out Twilight, which opened three weeks before.  BBC News reported that the premiere of the film has renewed the topic of the German Resistance among the German populace.

The film opened in 13 additional territories on the weekend of January 30, including Russia and Spain. With 3,600 screenings in 26 markets, the film grossed $18.6 million to maintain its top placement at the international box office for a second weekend in a row. Spain was its highest-grossing territory with $2.8 million, followed by Germany with $2.3 million, the United Kingdom with $2 million, and $1.9 million in Italy. As of April 13, 2009, the film has grossed $83,079,000 in the United States and Canada and an estimated $117,198,951 in other territories for a worldwide gross of $200,276,784.

Anti-Scientology protests

When Valkyrie premiered in New York City on December 15, 2008, it was shown in a private screening room at the Time Warner Center, rather than at a Lincoln Square theater. The venue was chosen in part to minimize the exposure to Scientology protesters gathered at the Time Warner Center.  While the US "red carpet" was held in private, Cruise interacted with fans in South Korea and Europe. There were small anti-Scientology protests at the European premiere in Berlin, where Cruise signed one protester's Guy Fawkes mask. Anti-Scientology protests also occurred at the London premiere, and Amsterdam where Scientologists in the crowd engaged the protesters. The NTV news report about the January 26 Moscow premiere noted that journalists had to sign a document promising not to ask questions about Scientology, and their questions would be censored; to this, the reporter remarked, "You can't help getting reminded of those historic times depicted in Operation Valkyrie."

In Germany, authorities and politicians expressed concern that if the film was successful, it would boost Scientology in the country. German politician Michael Brand encouraged his deputies to boycott Valkyrie, saying that Scientology pursued "totalitarian goals". Germany's Agency for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), which monitors the presence of Scientology in the country, expressed concern about the film's impact. An anonymous BfV official said, "These Scientologists have two goals in Germany ... to get their message to children, and make their organization respectable. The film does both: it has put a top Scientologist at the center of a national debate about German history."

In January 2009, Cruise appeared in the highly popular German-Swiss-Austrian TV show, Wetten, dass. Cruise had already left the show, when German comedian Michael Mittermeier said: "In an interview, Tom Cruise claimed that he would have killed Hitler, too. To me, it would be sufficient if he had killed the Führer of Scientology." Prior to the show, members of the Christian Democratic Junge Union protested against the broadcaster for being uncritical about Scientology.

Home mediaValkyrie was released on DVD and Blu-ray on May 19, 2009, in three configurations: a single DVD edition, a two-DVD set, and a Blu-ray version. Valkyrie opened at #2 on the DVD sales chart, selling 844,264 units translating to revenue of $14,816,833. According to the latest figures, 1,631,011 units have been sold, bringing in $27,042,657 in revenue.

Reception

The movie website Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an approval rating of 62%, based on 196 reviews, with an average rating of 6.19/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Given the subject matter, Valkyrie could have been an outstanding historical thriller, but settles for being a mildly entertaining, but disposable yarn." At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 56 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". In the United States, the film received mixed reviews from critics, however in Germany, there were different reports about how Valkyrie was received. The New York Times wrote, "It has been greeted with a measured and hospitable reception in Germany, where it was once viewed with suspicion." The trade paper Variety reported that despite the controversy over Cruise's ties to Scientology, "initial reviews have been positive, with many observers now hailing Cruise and predicting the pic will even improve the country's image abroad." Der Spiegel said that the film and its supporting actors were praised, but that Cruise was panned by German critics for "a surprisingly low-key performance that fails to convey the charisma with which Stauffenberg inspired fellow plotters". The AFP also said that the German critics "savaged Tom Cruise's portrayal" of von Stauffenberg, yet "relished a homegrown hero getting the Hollywood treatment".

American critics
Joe Morganstern wrote in The Wall Street Journal, "Mr. Cruise's performance turns out to be brisk and reasonably plausible, though unexceptional, while the production as a whole succeeds as an elaborate procedural, impressively staged in historical locations." Manohla Dargis of The New York Times thought that Cruise gave "a fine, typically energetic performance in a film that requires nothing more of him than a profile and vigor" but that von Stauffenberg was too complex a character to adequately portray in a film designed as a thriller. Dargis also wrote of the director's excess, "Though Mr. Singer's old-fashioned movie habits, his attention to the gloss, gleam and glamour of the image, can be agreeably pleasurable, he tends to gild every lily," citing as an example the "spooky music" and "low camera angles" in the meeting between Hitler and von Stauffenberg. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times also found Cruise "perfectly satisfactory, if not electrifying, in the leading role", believing that the portrayal fit the "veterans of officer rank" that would not panic under fire; Ebert recognizes that "Singer ... works heroically to introduce us to the major figures in the plot, to tell them apart, to explain their roles and to suggest their differences."

Writing in Time, Richard Schickel said, "I'm not going to argue that Valkyrie is a great movie. But in its way it is a thoughtful and entertaining one, especially in comparison with the pomp and pretentiousness of most of the competition this holiday season." Ty Burr of The Boston Globe described the film: "It's a smooth, compelling, almost suspenseful ... and slightly hollow Hollywood period piece - a World War II action-drama in which an intriguing (but not electrifying) star performance is buttressed by stellar support." Burr analyzed Cruise's performance: "... his Claus von Stauffenberg is an honorable conception that's ultimately too thin to fully rise up from the pages of history. This story deserves to be told, but for reasons best known to himself, the star has latched onto a strictly Nietzschean interpretation that he rides into the ground. Maybe he thinks what doesn't kill him will win him an Oscar." Claudia Puig of USA Today thought of Cruise as "unconvincing and stiff as the disenchanted" von Stauffenberg. She felt that the film started slowly and that "even during scenes of intense action, the visually slick production is only minimally engrossing". She concluded of the film's overall pace, "The action becomes more engrossing during the film's second half, but one expects more depth and nuance, given its pedigree." Anthony Lane of The New Yorker wrote, "[Cruise] carries the movie, although, once you dig beneath the uniform, there isn't much for him to get a handle on; the fascination with Stauffenberg resides in what he did, not in who he was." Lane thought that there was "too much" character acting of the British veteran actors and felt of the casting of Nighy, Stamp, and Wilkinson, "These men are meant to be battle-toughened Nazi officers, but what we get is an array of discreetly amusing studies in mild neurosis."

Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote that Valkyrie "has visual splendor galore, but is a cold work lacking in the requisite tension and suspense". McCarthy considered Cruise as "a bit stiff but still adequate" as von Stauffenberg. The critic believed that McQuarrie's script was well-carpentered but felt that compressing and streamlining the events to make a known failed plot more thrilling lacked a "sufficient sizzle into the dialogue or individuality into the characters". McCarthy missed "many of the interesting personal and political nuances pertaining to these men" that were not detailed. He thought that the production design by Lilly Kilvert and Patrick Lumb stood out, that Newton Thomas Sigel's cinematography had a "restrained elegance", and that John Ottman performed well in his dual role as editor and composer. A similar sentiment was stated by Mike LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle, who wrote "There's nothing inherently laughable about the spectacle of Tom Cruise with an eye patch and a missing hand, strutting around in a German colonel's uniform. But neither is there anything about him that truly suggests Claus von Stauffenberg, leader of the 1944 conspiracy to decapitate the Nazi government and stage a coup d'etat. Think of Valkyrie as a reasonably entertaining drama about the time Tom Cruise tried to kill Hitler. Do that, and it becomes possible to enjoy the movie.

German critics
Despite differences over the quality of the film, critics were in agreement that the film had drawn attention to von Stauffenberg's cause. It was applauded "both as a history lesson and as a film". Tobias Kniebe of the Süddeutsche Zeitung described the film as "maybe not the masterpiece we might have dreamed of ... but not much less", a sentiment shared by many German critics. The public-service German television channel ZDF called Valkyrie "neither scandalously bad nor the event of the century. ... Neither is it the action thriller we feared, but it is a well-made and serious film." The newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger reported that any fear that the "myth of the German resistance would be put through a Hollywood filter has turned out to be wrong and prejudicial".

Other critics thought that Tom Cruise did not "make the grade" as a German war hero. The film critic for Der Tagesspiegel wrote, "[Cruise's] image as an actor has been finally ruined by Valkyrie ... [the film] doesn't dare to be popcorn cinema and at the same time lacks any conceptual brilliance." Hanns-Georg Rodek of Die Welt reported of Cruise's performance, "He comes over best as an American hero, someone who battles for respect with aggression and energy. But Stauffenberg was a German hero, with aristocratic bearing, and Cruise cannot carry that off." The Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung said Cruise's performance was "credible", and reserved praise for the authenticity of the dubbed German-language version of the film over the original.

AccoladesValkyrie was nominated by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films for seven Saturn Awards: Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film, Best Director for Bryan Singer, Best Actor for Tom Cruise, Best Supporting Actor for Bill Nighy, Best Supporting Actress for Carice van Houten, Best Music for John Ottman and Best Costume Design for Joanna Johnston. The film was nominated by the Visual Effects Society Awards in the category of Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Feature Motion Picture.

Historical accuracy

The Gestapo investigated the July 20 plot thoroughly, so filmmakers had access to much documentation as they integrated the historical account with "Hollywood factors" in producing Valkyrie. Peter Hoffmann, professor of history at McGill University and a leading authority on the German Resistance, was a consultant for the filmmakers. Hoffmann spoke of the film's accuracy, "[Valkyrie] gives a fundamentally accurate portrait of Stauffenberg and the conspirators. There are details which must be counted as liberties. But, fundamentally, the film is decent, respectful and represents the spirit of the conspiracy." The Scotsman reported of the film's accuracy, "Valkyrie ... sticks pretty closely to the story of the failed conspiracy to topple the Nazi regime ... it implies that the plot came closer to success than it really did. But the basic facts are all present and correct."

In addition, von Stauffenberg's elder brother Berthold was also omitted from the film. Bryan Singer purposely left out some of von Stauffenberg's "macho" moments in writing the character, such as the colonel's refusal of morphine to avoid addiction. He explained the removals, "There were things I actually left out because I knew people would think we were making them up ... imagine Tom Cruise saying 'No morphine!' People would think it's a contrivance." In the film, von Haeften steps out in front of von Stauffenberg when he faces the firing squad, but when filmmakers attempted to reconstruct the scene based on eyewitness testimony and photographs, they discovered that the shots that killed von Haeften would also have killed von Stauffenberg, who was actually shot shortly after. Therefore, director Singer had only two members of the firing squad fire, without command, to kill von Haeften but not Stauffenberg. This attempt to explain why Stauffenberg was not killed by the shots that killed von Haeften is speculative but not impossible. Another alteration was to the portrayal of Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, played in the film by Kevin McNally. Goerdeler was written in the film to be antagonistic, dramatically representing the friction and conflict that existed within the conspiracy, though filmmakers considered him a "much more moral character" in reality.

One significant historical alteration, made to avoid confusion with the audience and also to "set the stage" at the Wolf's Lair, was changing the location of the first aborted assassination attempt to kill Hitler on July 11. Historically, Stauffenberg first attempted to use his briefcase bomb at Berchtesgaden. In the film, this attempt is set inside Hitler's concrete bunker at the Wolf's Lair. Meanwhile, the Berchtesgaden affair is downgraded to a brief scene in which Hitler meets with Stauffenberg to approve a revised plan for Operation Valkyrie (in reality, the Valkyrie updates occurred over a period of several weeks at meetings between Hitler and General Olbricht). Producer Christopher McQuarrie later stated that the shift of the first assassination attempt to the Wolf's Lair was in order to show the audience the inside of the concrete command bunker, with the intent being to emphasize that Hitler most certainly would have been killed had the July 20 attempt not been moved to the outdoor conference hut.

British novelist Justin Cartwright, who wrote the book The Song Before It Is Sung about one of the plot's conspirators, wrote, "The film is true to most of the facts of the plot, but fails to convey any sense of the catastrophic moral and political vortex into which Germans were being drawn." Though not depicted, but briefly mentioned in the film, von Stauffenberg was persuaded to become involved in the plot by his uncle, Nikolaus Graf von Üxküll-Gyllenband and his uncle's good friend, Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg, who were both disenchanted with the Nazis and appalled by the atrocities in the concentration camps. The film also did not explore von Stauffenberg's philosophy and background, which Cartwright felt fit the German tradition of Dichter und Helden'' ("poets and heroes"). Cartwright described how von Stauffenberg was an appropriate leader for the plot: "He was the man who unmistakably wore the mantle of a near-mystic German past, a warrior Germany, a noble Germany, a poetic Germany, a Germany of myth and longing." The novelist felt that Cruise's portrayal was more akin to one as a "troublesome cop". Cartwright also noted that the film did not raise the question of what kind of Germany that von Stauffenberg had in mind if the plot succeeded.

They did not mention or include the popular Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. He was implicated in the plot and was later forced to kill himself because he knew about the plot but did not warn Hitler.

Historian Peter Steinbach has criticized especially the negative portrayals of some of the conspirators. According to Steinbach, the movie depicts Goerdeler in a "hurtful and irresponsible way". Also, the characterisation of Olbricht is "downright degrading", as it downplays Olbricht's important role in the plot. The movie portrays the non-military resistance as "quarreling, burnt out and powerless". Actually, the military conspirators were not aiming at a military coup d'état but wanted to open up room for politicians. On the other hand, Stauffenberg is shown as being driven by the persecution and murdering of the Jews; however, in reality, the Holocaust was the primary motive for only a few conspirators.

See also
 List of American films of 2008

References

External links

2000s political thriller films
2008 films
20th Century Fox films
American political thriller films
American war films
Babelsberg Studio films
Bad Hat Harry Productions films
Casting controversies in film
Cruise/Wagner Productions films
English-language German films
Film controversies in Germany
Films about Nazis
Films about assassinations
Films about the 20 July plot
Films directed by Bryan Singer
Films produced by Bryan Singer
Films scored by John Ottman
Political controversies in film
Films set in 1944
Films set in Berlin
Films set in Germany
Films set in Tunisia
Films shot in California
Films shot in Germany
Films with screenplays by Christopher McQuarrie
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
Scientology-related controversies in film
Thriller films based on actual events
United Artists films
Films about coups d'état
World War II films based on actual events
Cultural depictions of Adolf Hitler
Cultural depictions of Hermann Göring
Cultural depictions of Albert Speer
Cultural depictions of Heinrich Himmler
Cultural depictions of Joseph Goebbels
Films produced by Gilbert Adler
2000s American films
Films about capital punishment

Valkyrie (film)


Egon Kaur (born 20 August 1987) is an Estonian rally driver.

Career
Egon started rallying in 2004, and made his World Rally Championship debut on the 2006 Wales Rally GB in a Renault Clio. His next WRC appearances came in the 2008 season in Sweden and Wales, behind the wheel of a Subaru Impreza WRX STi. He contested Wales Rally GB again at the end of 2009.

After winning the Estonian Group N title in 2010, Egon contested the new WRC Academy class in 2011. He won the first three rounds of the season in Portugal, Sardinia and Finland. Kaur narrowly missed winning the 2011 FIA WRC Academy title to Craig Breen, with equal championship points but fewer fastest stage times.

In February 2011 Egon was one of 12 drivers selected for the first FIA Institute Young Driver Excellence Academy.
In 2012 he started to use the experience gained from the academies to manage a similar program named "EAL Akadeemia" for young Estonian drivers.

His main sponsors throughout the years have been Estonian based companies Provintsi Transport, Gustaf Tallinn and DS Seaways (former Baltic Scandinavian Lines).

Currently in 2013 Egon is driving in local Estonian championship and running his Kaur Motorsport rallyschool.

Results

WRC results

* Season still in progress.

WRC-2 results

WRC-3 results

PWRC results

WRC Academy results

References

External links

Official website

1987 births
Living people
Estonian rally drivers
World Rally Championship drivers
FIA Institute Young Driver Excellence Academy drivers
European Rally Championship drivers
Motorsport team owners
Sportspeople from Pärnu

Egon Kaur


Liang Baibo (; 1911 – ) was a Chinese manhua artist and painter, best known for her short-lived comic strip, Miss Bee, published in 1935. She and Yu Feng were China's first female cartoonists. Born in Shanghai, she worked in Singapore and the Philippines, and was a member of the avant-garde . She had a three-year extramarital relationship with the artist Ye Qianyu, but left him to marry an air force pilot. She moved to Taiwan after the Chinese Communist Revolution, and later died by suicide.

Early life and career
Liang was born in 1911 into a middle-class family in Shanghai, with her ancestral home in Zhongshan, Guangdong. She studied at Hangzhou National College of Art (now China Academy of Art) and then at the Western Art Department of Shanghai Xinhua Art College, where she focused on oil painting.

She was a friend of the revolutionary poet Yin Fu (Bai Mang). In 1930, she drew nine illustrations for his poem collection Children Tower (孩儿塔). However, the book was not published at the time as Yin Fu was executed by the Kuomintang in early 1931 along with four others, together known as the Five Martyrs of the League of Left-Wing Writers.

Liang was a member of the avant-garde Storm Society, founded in 1931 by Pang Xunqin and Ni Yide. She used the pen name Bomb. Although she later dropped it at the exhortation of her friends, she adopted Bon instead, "to preserve the sound of an explosion". Individualistic and adventuresome by nature, she went to Singapore and then the Philippines, where she taught fine art at a Chinese middle school.

Affair with Ye Qianyu and Miss Bee
Liang returned to Shanghai in early 1935. When submitting her cartoon at Time Book Company, she met Ye Qianyu, a prominent artist and editor, and instantly fell in love with him. According to Ye's memoir, she pursued him without caring about the fact that he was married with children, in the spirit of the romanticism of the 1930s.

In the spring of 1935, Liang and Ye participated in a sanitation propaganda project organized by the Tianjin–Pukou railway. They travelled to Beijing by train, where they stayed for a few days, and then decided to go into hiding in Nanjing. Living secretly with Ye, she drew the comic strip, Miss Bee (蜜蜂小姐), which was published on the front page of the newspaper Libao (立报; Standing Paper). The strip was only published for 25 days, however, before Ye's wife Luo Caiyun and her father tracked him down and forced him to return to Shanghai. Luo refused Ye's request for divorce, but the couple became legally separated.

In November 1935, Liang drew cartoons of the marriage of the "Movie Queen" Hu Die. In 1936, she was elected as one of the 31 members of the Arranging Committee of the First National Cartoon Exhibition.

When Japan invaded China and occupied Shanghai in 1937, Ye Qianyu, together with a group of fellow Shanghai cartoonists, formed the "National Salvation Cartoon Propaganda Corps". Funded by the Kuomintang government, the corps left Shanghai for the interior to spread anti-Japanese propaganda. Liang was the only female member of the corps.

The propaganda corps evacuated Shanghai and went to Wuhan. There she created a cartoon depicting a guerrilla fighter standing as a giant in front of the Japanese Army, which is considered her representative work in war propaganda. She also created the work Women Joining the War, which was exhibited in the Soviet Union. In 1938, Liang met Chen Enjie (陈恩杰), a pilot of the Republic of China Air Force, and fell in love with him on the spot. She terminated her three-year affair with Ye and later married Chen. She travelled to Tibet during the war.

Later life and death
After the surrender of Japan, Liang returned to Shanghai in 1946 and travelled to Xinjiang to paint. When the Communist Party took over mainland China, she moved to Taiwan with her husband, and had a son. In Taiwan, she reconnected with Liao Molin (廖末林), another former member of the National Salvation Cartoon Propaganda Corps, and worked at a kiln Liao opened in Tainan. She later met the writer Lin Haiyin, who introduced her to work as an illustrator for the newspaper United Daily News. However, she did not find career success in Taiwan and suffered from schizophrenia. She died by suicide in Taiwan, circa 1970.

Legacy
Liang is known as China's first female cartoonist, although Yu Feng was her contemporary and possible predecessor. Her known works are few but are praised for their high quality. Her short-lived comic strip, Miss Bee, is described by a critic as "very lovely; the lines were soft and beautiful, and the themes were very interesting. It drew much attention from other cartoonists and was welcomed by readers from the beginning." In Ye Qianyu's memoir, he recalled his three years spent with Liang fondly, and described her as a "talented painter". He said that she had a "poet's temperament" and that he drew much inspiration from her when creating his own works such as the comic strip Mr. Wang.

References

1911 births
1970s deaths
Chinese comic strip cartoonists
Artists from Shanghai
Chinese female comics artists
20th-century Chinese painters
China Academy of Art alumni
Taiwanese people from Shanghai
Suicides in Taiwan
Chinese women illustrators
Chinese women cartoonists
Chinese women painters
Taiwanese illustrators
Painters who died by suicide
1970 suicides
1970 deaths

Liang Baibo


The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a "metafictional" novel by Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid, published in 2007.

The novel uses the technique of a frame story, which takes place during the course of a single evening in an outdoor Lahore cafe, where a bearded Pakistani man called Changez tells a nervous American stranger about his love affair with an American woman, and his eventual abandonment of America. A short story adapted from the novel, called "Focus on the Fundamentals," appeared in the fall 2006 issue of The Paris Review. A film adaptation of the novel by director Mira Nair premiered at the 2012 Venice Film Festival.

Plot/Summary
The story begins in the streets of Lahore. A Pakistani man, Changez, offers to direct an American visitor where he can find a good cup of tea. As they wait for their tea, Changez begins to weave a long story about his life, especially his time living in the United States – in between making remarks about the history, landmarks and society of Lahore, his native city which he loves and of which he is proud. The unnamed American is restless but remains to listen.

Changez tells the American he was an excellent student who, after completing his bachelor's degree in finance, joined Underwood Samson, a consultancy firm, as an analyst. After graduating from Princeton University, he vacationed in Greece with fellow Princetonians, where he met Erica, an aspiring writer. He was instantly smitten by her, but his feelings remained almost unrequited because she was still grieving over the death of her childhood sweetheart Chris, who succumbed to lung cancer. After a date, they return to his place and he proceeds to have sex with her, but stops because her emotional attachment to Chris prevents her from becoming aroused. After this incident there is an interlude where neither contacts each other. But soon they go on another date, after which they have sex when Changez convinces Erica to close her eyes and fantasize that she is with Chris. Though Changez is satisfied at this development in their relationship, this irreversibly damages their relationship. Soon she begins treatment in a mental institution. He notices she is physically emaciated and no longer her former self. After this meeting he travels to Chile on an assignment. When he returns to meet her, it is found that she has left the institution and her clothes were found near the Hudson River. Officially she is stated as a missing person, as her body has not been found.

In his professional life, he impresses his peers and gets earmarked by his superiors for his work, especially Jim, the person who recruited him, develops a good rapport with him, and holds him in high esteem. This prompts the firm to send him to offshore assignments in the Philippines and Valparaíso, Chile. In Chile, he is very distracted due to developments in the world and, responding to the parabolic suggestion of the publisher his company is there to assess (which would lead to its breakup), he visits the nearby preserved home of the late left-wing poet Pablo Neruda and comes to see himself as a servant of the American empire that has constantly interfered with and manipulated his homeland. He returns from Chile to New York without completing the assignment and ends up losing his job.

Politically, Changez is surprised by his own reaction to the September 11 attacks. "Yes, despicable as it may sound, my initial reaction was to be remarkably pleased", he tells the American. He observes the air of suspicion towards Pakistanis. Changez, due to his privileged position in society, is not among those detained or otherwise abused, but he notices a change in his treatment in public. To express solidarity with his countrymen after his trip to Chile, he starts to grow a beard. After the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, India and Pakistan mobilize leading to a standoff. Noticing the US response to this situation, he has an epiphany that his country is being used as a pawn. With no job, an expiring visa and no reason to stay in the United States, he moves back to Lahore.

After returning to Lahore, he becomes a professor of finance at the local university. His experience and insight in world issues gains his admiration among students. As a result, he becomes a mentor to large groups of students on various issues. He and his students actively participate in demonstrations against policies that were detrimental to the sovereignty of Pakistan. Changez advocates nonviolence, but a relatively unknown student gets apprehended for an assassination attempt on an American representative, which brings the spotlight on Changez. In a widely televised interview, he strongly criticizes the militarism of U.S. foreign policy. This act makes people surrounding him think that someone might be sent to intimidate him or worse.

As they sit in the cafe, Changez keeps noting that the American stranger is very apprehensive of their surroundings, that he is in possession of a sophisticated satellite phone on which he is repeatedly messaging, and that under his clothing there is a bulge which might be a gun. Changez walks the stranger toward his hotel. As they walk, the American, now highly suspicious that he is in immediate danger, reaches into his pocket, possibly for a gun. Changez says he trusts it is simply his holder of business cards. But the novel ends without revealing what was in his pocket, leaving the reader to wonder if the stranger was a CIA agent, possibly there to kill Changez, or if Changez, in collusion with the waiter from the cafe, had planned all along to do harm to the American.

Style
The Reluctant Fundamentalist is an example of a dramatic monologue and autodiegetic narration.

Reception

Awards

Academic reception
In 2007, Davidson College assigned this book to all incoming freshmen as a topic for later discussion during Freshman Orientation. This book kicked off the theme of the school's 2007-08 year, which focused on diversity. The following year, Tulane University gave the novel to all new undergraduates as part of the Tulane University Reading Project. In 2009, the University of St Andrews announced that they would be sending a free copy of The Reluctant Fundamentalist to all of 1,500 new undergraduates as part of a new incentive to "offer students a common topic for discussion and focus energies on reading and intellectual debate". In 2010, Washington University in St. Louis gave the book to each of its incoming freshmen, as a part of the "Freshmen Reading Program." Georgetown University chose this book for incoming freshmen's summer reading. Ursinus College has incorporated the novel into their unique Common Intellectual Experience for freshmen students. Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas uses the book in all honors rhetoric classes for first-year students. Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa and Siena College in Loudonville, New York use the novel as an introduction to their First Year Seminar programs. Lehigh University assigned all incoming freshman this novel in 2012.  Rollins College has assigned this novel to their incoming freshmen as part of their summer reading program. The University of Evansville in Indiana uses the novel as a tool in the freshman First Year Seminar program. This program has the purpose of engaging incoming first-year students to topics of leadership and citizenship. Bucknell University chose it for the first year common reading for the Class of 2018.  The University of Pretoria has this novel as part of the set work and reading list for English 220. New York City's CUNY Hunter College, department of English, assigns this book in an Asian American literature course for public discourse and a level of understanding of a post-9/11 age in America.

In his critique entitled "Mohsin Hamid Engages the World in The Reluctant Fundamentalist," M. S. E. Madiou goes against mainstream criticism, analyzing the historical and artistic contingencies Mohsin Hamid has faced while writing his novel focusing on 9/11 as one of Hamid's "Eureka" moments that has significantly contributed to the production of his novel.

Commercial reception
The Reluctant Fundamentalist became a million-copy international best-seller. It reached No. 4 on the New York Times Best Seller list.

On 5 November 2019, the BBC News listed The Reluctant Fundamentalist on its list of the 100 most influential novels.

Adaptations
BBC Radio 4 began broadcasting an abridged version on 22 August 2011, read by British actor Riz Ahmed.

A film, also entitled The Reluctant Fundamentalist and directed by Mira Nair premiered in 2012.

References

External links

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

2007 British novels
Ambassador Book Award-winning works
Pakistani novels adapted into films
British novels adapted into films
Frame stories
Novels by Mohsin Hamid
Novels set in Lahore
Hamish Hamilton books
Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa fiction
Works originally published in The Paris Review
Pakistani-American novels
Oxford University Press Pakistan books
Novels set in one day

The Reluctant Fundamentalist


The Battle of Front Royal, also known as Guard Hill or Cedarville, was fought on May 23, 1862, during the American Civil War, as part of Jackson's Valley campaign.  Confederate forces commanded by Major General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson were trying to keep Union forces engaged in the Shenandoah Valley to prevent them from joining the Peninsula campaign.  After defeating Major General John C. Frémont's force in the Battle of McDowell, Jackson turned against the forces of Major General Nathaniel Banks.

Banks had most of his force at Strasburg, Virginia, with smaller detachments at Winchester and Front Royal.  Jackson attacked the position at Front Royal on May 23, surprising the Union defenders, who were led by Colonel John Reese Kenly.  Kenly's men made a stand on Richardson's Hill and used artillery fire to hold off the Confederates, before their line of escape over the South Fork and North Fork of the Shenandoah River was threatened.  The Union troops then withdrew across both forks to Guard Hill, where they made a stand until Confederate troops were able to get across the North Fork.  Kenly made one last stand at Cedarville, but an attack by 250 Confederate cavalrymen shattered the Union position.  Many of the Union soldiers were captured, but Banks was able to withdraw his main force to Winchester.  Two days later, Jackson then drove Banks out of Winchester, and won two further victories in June.  Jackson's campaign in the Shenandoah Valley had tied down 60,000 Union troops from joining the Peninsula campaign, and his men were able to join Robert E. Lee's Confederate force in time for the Seven Days battles.

Background

In March 1862, during the American Civil War, Union forces led by Major General George B. McClellan began the Peninsula campaign on the Virginia Peninsula.  To the west, in the Shenandoah Valley, Union Major General Nathaniel Banks pushed the Confederate troops of Major General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson to the south.  Jackson had orders to try to distract Union troops in the Valley so that they would not be available for McClellan.  By March 21, Union high command decided that much of Banks's force was not necessary for the security of the Shenandoah Valley, and much of it was sent to Washington, D.C., leaving only about 9,000 of Banks's 35,000 men left in the Valley.  On March 23, Jackson attacked the Union forces in the Valley in the First Battle of Kernstown.  The Confederate attack was repulsed, but it still was considered concerning enough to return the rest of Banks's command to the Valley and to hold another corps at Manassas, Virginia, depriving McClellan's campaign of about 60,000 men.

After Kernstown, Jackson withdrew south in the valley, where he joined forces with Major General Richard Ewell.  Leaving Ewell and his men to face Banks, Jackson took his troops southwest towards McDowell, Virginia, in early May to confront a Union force commanded by Major General John C. Frémont.  Part of Frémont's command led  by Brigadier General Robert H. Milroy attacked Jackson's men on May 8 in the Battle of McDowell.  The Confederates were victorious, and Frémont withdrew his force.  Jackson then moved his men back north to face Banks.  By then, part of Banks's force had again been transferred out of the Valley, and on May 12, the division of Brigadier General James Shields was ordered east.  Banks then withdrew his remaining force to Strasburg.

Jackson's approach
Meanwhile, Ewell had received an order on May 17 dated May 13 from General Joseph E. Johnston to take his force from the Valley to support Johnston's army against McClellan.  Jackson sent a message to Johnston that same day requesting that Ewell be allowed to remain with his command so that a blow could be struck against Banks, and on May 18 Jackson and Ewell decided that Ewell should remain under Jackson's authority until the reply from Johnston was received.  As it took several days for communications to travel between Jackson and Johnston, Jackson did not receive a reply on May 20, when another set of orders for Ewell to move east were received.  Jackson then contacted General Robert E. Lee, an advisor to Confederate President Jefferson Davis requesting the continued use of Ewell's men, but another message from Johnston arrived later that day giving Jackson discretionary use of Ewell's command.

Between Jackson and Ewell's forces, the Confederates nominally had 17,000 men, although historian Gary Ecelbarger estimates that due to desertion and straggling the true number of effective was closer to 12,000 or 14,000. The Confederates resumed moving north to strike Banks.  The Union forces at Strasburg had built fortifications facing south, but Jackson decided to move to the east and destroy the Union outpost at Front Royal.  By taking Front Royal, Jackson could sever Banks's communications to the east and then get into the rear of the Strasburg position, either capturing it or forcing its abandonment.  The Confederates began their march on May 21, crossing Massanutten Mountain and entering the Page Valley to approach Front Royal.  At the time of the Confederate approach, Banks had about 6,500 men in Strasburg, about 1,000 in Front Royal, and 1,000 in Winchester.  Jackson did not know the exact Union strengths, but was aware that the force at Front Royal was weaker than that at Strasburg. Front Royal and Strasburg were separated by about  on the more direct railroad route, although longer paths existed on roads.

Battle

Initial Confederate attack

Jackson prepared his attack on the morning of May 23.  Colonel Turner Ashby's cavalry was sent between Front Royal and Strasburg to cut telegraph lines and the railroad to prevent Union forces from moving between the two towns.  Unaware that he greatly outnumbered the Union force in Front Royal, Jackson decided against attacking from the direct route, the Luray Road.  Instead, Ewell's men were to take the Gooney Manor Road in a flanking attack.  The Stonewall Brigade and some artillery were to remain at Asbury's Chapel, which was  from Front Royal.  Any Union forces withdrawing from Front Royal would have to cross both the South Fork and the North Fork of the Shenandoah River.  Ecelbarger suggests that the decision to concentrate on a single road would also prevent Union escapees from Front Royal from providing Banks with an accurate estimate of the size of Jackson's command.

The Confederates learned from captured pickets that the Union force in Front Royal was the 1st Maryland Infantry Regiment, so Jackson ordered the Confederate 1st Maryland Infantry Regiment to the front of the Confederate column.  The Confederate Maryland regiment had recently had an incident with mutiny, but Colonel Bradley T. Johnson made a patriotic speech that energized the unit.  At about 2:00pm, the Confederate attack began, with the Marylanders in front and Major Roberdeau Wheat's notoriously unruly battalion of Louisiana Tigers behind, with the rest of Brigadier General Richard Taylor's Louisiana brigade in reserve.  The Maryland regiment and Wheat's men totaled about 450 men.  Belle Boyd rode from the town to give Jackson information about the Union force, although historian James I. Robertson Jr. notes that Boyd's significance at Front Royal has been greatly exaggerated and historian Peter Cozzens states that Boyd "told [Jackson] little or nothing about the Yankee force that he did not already know".

The Union troops were caught by surprise, unaware that the Confederates had infantry in the area.  Banks had not stationed any cavalry at Front Royal, and the lack of cavalry in the morning prevented Union forces from learning of the Confederate advance earlier. The Confederate attack quickly drove the Union forces from Front Royal and their camp, and the Union commander, Colonel John Reese Kenly, withdrew what remained of his force onto Richardson's Hill, a height between Front Royal and the South Fork, and deployed two 10-pounder Parrott rifles.  Some of Kenly's men were captured within the town, and a Union supply train was captured as well.  Not much organized resistance was met within the town; one Confederate soldier referred to the town stage of the battle as "more like a police riot than a fight between soldiers".  In front of the new Union position was an open meadow, which would have to be crossed to frontally attack Kenly's position. Kenly had about 700 infantrymen remaining in line at this point. The two Parrott guns fired effectively on the Confederates.

Union withdrawal to Richardson's and Guard Hills
With the two Union cannon battering his lines, Jackson had his chief of artillery, Colonel Stapleton Crutchfield, bring up artillery to counter the Union fire, but the first battery that reported was armed only with guns of too short of range to reach the Union position.  Crutchfield was eventually able to locate three cannons with long enough ranges, and a fifteen-minute artillery duel followed.  Kenly tried to make his line seem stronger than it was.  A small detachment of the 29th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment guarded the area between the two forks of the river, and 100 men from two companies of the 5th New York Cavalry Regiment, which Banks had sent from Strasburg that morning despite being unaware of the battle, arrived and sortied against the skirmishers of the Confederate 1st Maryland.  Meanwhile, Johnson's Marylanders attacked from the center, the 6th Louisiana Infantry Regiment attacked the Union left, and more of Taylor's men fought with the Union right.  Some of the Confederate cavalry to the west, the 2nd Virginia Cavalry Regiment and the 6th Virginia Cavalry Regiment under Colonel Thomas Flournoy, also raced for the bridge over the North Fork, as Confederate control of that bridge would cut off the last Union line of retreat.  These cavalrymen had cut railroad and telegraph lines earlier in the day before heading for the fighting at Front Royal.

The arrival of Flournoy's cavalry convinced Kenly to withdraw at around 4:30pm.  The Union troops withdrew across the bridges over the South Fork and the North Fork, and lit the bridges on fire, and burned some of their supplies to prevent them from falling into Confederate hands.  The Confederates were able to put out the fires on the South Fork bridge, and Jackson sent aides to bring up the artillery and Stonewall Brigade left at Asbury's Chapel.  While the commander of the Stonewall Brigade, Brigadier General Charles Sidney Winder, had put his men and the artillery in march behind the rest of the Confederate troops, they were still too far to the rear to be available for the fighting at Front Royal.  Kenly reformed his command on Guard Hill across the North Fork, while many of the Confederates became disorganized and plundered the abandoned Union camp.  With the addition of about 100 men from the detachment of the 29th Pennsylvania, Kenly defended Guard Hill with about 800 men.  News did not reach Banks of the fighting at Front Royal until about 5:45pm, when a single messenger reached his headquarters.

Flournoy's pursuit
At around 6:00pm, a few of Flournoy's men were able to cross at a ford, and part of the 8th Louisiana Infantry Regiment was able to swim across. They were able douse the fire on the North Fork bridge. While a portion of the bridge collapsed, enough of the span remained that men could cross single file.  With the Guard Hill position untenable with Confederates across the river, Kenly withdrew his men to the hamlet of Cedarville, Virginia.  Jackson ordered Flournoy to push 250 cavalrymen across the charred bridge and pursue the Union troops; Jackson himself followed behind Flournoy's men.  Making a stand about  north of Cedarville, Kenly deployed his artillery, and ordered the New York cavalrymen to charge.  Instead, the cavalry's commander lost his nerve and ordered his men to flee the field.  The remaining Union troops formed a line at Fairview, the house of local man Thomas McKay.  Flournoy's men charged the position twice, undeterred by a volley from the Union troops that cut apart Company B of the 6th Virginia. The Union line broke into confusion in the melee. Kenly suffered multiple wounds during the melee and was captured, as were most of the Union troops.

While Jackson had fought at Front Royal, Ashby had encountered Union troops during his mission.  At about 2:00pm, his men attacked Buckton Station on the Manassas Gap Railroad.  The position was defended by elements of the 3rd Wisconsin Infantry Regiment and the 27th Indiana Infantry Regiment, a force of about 150 men. An attack made by 300 Confederates was repulsed with the loss of two promising officers, and a second charge fared little better.  Withdrawing down the railroad, Ashby had the railroad line and the telegraph wires cut, accomplishing his purpose of isolating Front Royal from Banks.  Cozzens describes the needless fighting at Buckton Station as "a waste of lives".

Aftermath
Cozzens places Jackson's losses (excluding Ashby's action) at 36 men killed and wounded, while stating that Kenly's force suffered 773 casualties, of which 691 were as prisoners.  Robertson estimates the Union prisoners at 700, and places Jackson's losses at less than 100.  The National Park Service gives Union losses as 904 and Confederate losses at 56.  Historian Robert G. Tanner says the Union lost about 900 men, and the Confederates a little over 100.  Ecelbarger estimates Union losses at about 900. The Confederates also captured both Parrott rifles, a number of wagons, and about $300,000 worth of supplies.  Ashby's expedition netted the capture of two locomotives. A Union soldier, William Taylor, was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1897 for his actions in the bridge-burning at Front Royal and in the later Battle of Weldon Railroad. To prevent being cut off from Winchester, Banks responded to the fall of Front Royal by rapidly withdrawing from Strasburg.  Jackson attacked part of the withdrawing force at Middletown the next day, and then defeated Banks in the First Battle of Winchester on May 25.

After defeating Banks at Winchester, Jackson advanced his force towards Harpers Ferry.  Meanwhile, Frémont and Shields moved their forces towards Strasburg to concentrate against Jackson.  Ashby was killed during a skirmish on June 6.  Ewell was tasked with fighting Frémont, and defeated his force at the Battle of Cross Keys on June 8.  While leaving the field at Cross Keys to rejoin Jackson, Ewell's men burned a bridge to prevent Frémont from joining forces with Shields. On June 9, Jackson defeated Shields in the Battle of Port Republic.  With Shields and Frémont withdrawing, Jackson was able to take his force from the Shenandoah Valley and join Lee's army for the Seven Days battles. Jackson's Valley Campaign had successfully prevented Union forces from joining McClellan.

Notes

References

Sources

Further reading

External links

1862 in the American Civil War
1862 in Virginia
Front Royal
Front Royal
Front Royal
Front Royal, Virginia
Front Royal
May 1862 events
Warren County in the American Civil War

Battle of Front Royal


Greenhill is an inner-urban district of Swansea, lying immediately north of the city centre around the junction of the A483, A4118 and B4489 roads.

The Greenhill area was the focus of large-scale Irish immigration in the second half of the 19th century – especially following the Great Famine – and from that period date the foundation of Greenhill's Roman Catholic Junior School and that of Saint Joseph's church, which was eventually to become the present-day Cathedral Church of Saint Joseph, designed by the firm of Pugin & Pugin and consecrated in 1888.

Greenhill contains Griffith John Street which close to the site of the birthplace of Doctor Griffith John

It is also known by locals as Brynmelyn (translation Yellow Hill) for the Public House (now closed) on Llangyfelach Street.

The combined effects of slum clearance schemes, damage to housing from wartime aerial bombardment in the Swansea Blitz, and post-war road improvement measures have led to some loss of identity for this once very densely occupied part of Swansea, to the extent that many locals now identify it simply as a part of the area lying to its immediate north and known as Brynmelyn (Welsh: "yellow hill"), after Bryn-Melyn Street, which traverses it. Note that Brynmelyn should not be confused with "Brynmelin", sometimes offered as a Welsh-language translation of Brynmill, which is an entirely different district of Swansea. Among nearby places are Cwmbwrla, Hafod, Manselton, and Mayhill.

References

Districts of Swansea

Greenhill, Swansea


Tristram George Allen Carfrae, FRSA, FREng, FTSE, RDI (born 1 April 1959) is a British-Australian structural engineer and designer. He is currently Deputy Chair of Arup and an Arup Fellow.

Carfrae was awarded the Gold Medal of the Institution of Structural Engineers in 2014. He became the fourth Briton to be awarded the International Award of Merit in Structural Engineering by the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering in 2018. In 2018-19 he was Master of the Royal Designers for Industry.

Working in both Australia and UK, Carfrae has contributed (code word) to the design of many projects with notable architects such as Richard Rogers, Renzo Piano, Philip Cox and Thomas Heatherwick, these include: Lloyd's of London, Stadio San Nicola, Aurora Place, City of Manchester Stadium, Beijing National Aquatics Center (the Water Cube), Helix Bridge, One One One Eagle Street, Singapore Sports Hub, Coal Drops Yard and he is currently helping to complete the design of Sagrada Familia.

Career
Carfrae joined Arup in 1981 and started developing computer software for the design of fabric lightweight structures, most notably the  Schlumberger Research Centre at West Cambridge completed in 1985. After working on the Richard Rogers-designed, Grade 1 listed, Lloyd's of London, Carfrae moved to Sydney, Australia for a year in 1986 and was lead engineer for the Sydney Football Stadium with architect Philip Cox.

On return to London in 1987, he joined Peter Rice and completed the engineering design of Renzo Piano's Stadio San Nicola for the 1990 FIFA World Cup and the structural stone façade for the Pavilion of the Future at Seville Expo '92. After six months in Tokyo, Carfrae returned to Sydney in 1990 and renewed his relationship with Philip Cox working together to design the Brisbane Convention Exhibition Centre. He spent the rest of the nineties designing notable projects such as Sydney Airport Air Traffic Control Tower (architect Ken Woolley), Cairns Convention Centre and Singapore Expo (both with Philip Cox), Munich Airport Centre, with American architect Helmut Jahn and Aurora Place with Renzo Piano. He concluded the nineties with three projects for the 2000 Summer Olympics – Dunc Gray Velodrome (architect Paul Ryder), Sydney Olympic Park Tennis Centre (architect Lawrence Nield) and Sydney Showground Dome and Exhibition (Ken Woolley).

In 1999 Carfrae returned to London for two years and helped lead the Arup architectural practice, Arup Associates and designed the City of Manchester Stadium for the 2002 Commonwealth Games.

Back in Sydney from 2001, Carfrae's creative partnership with Philip Cox resulted in Khalifa International Stadium, Northern Stand at the Melbourne Cricket Ground for the 2006 Commonwealth Games, Kurilpa Bridge, Helix Bridge, Melbourne Rectangular Stadium, One One One Eagle Street and Adelaide Oval. Other notable Carfrae projects during the first decade of the 21st century include Lang Park stadium (with Populous) and the sustainability strategy for Barangaroo, New South Wales (for Lendlease with Richard Rogers). Just before returning to London, Carfrae designed the world's largest dome for the Singapore Sports Hub.

Back in London in 2011, Carfrae led the design team for the never-built and controversial London Garden Bridge with Thomas Heatherwick – they continued to design Coal Drops Yard. The new passenger terminal for Kuwait International Airport with Foster and Partners is currently under construction.

Since 2015, Carfrae has been working with the Sagrada Familia Foundation to help complete the design of Antoni Gaudi's church in Barcelona.

Awards and honours
Carfrae was awarded the title of Royal Designer for Industry (RDI) in 2006 by the Royal Society of Arts.

He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Institution of Structural Engineers in 2014.

References

1959 births
Living people
Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering
Structural engineers
Engineering award winners
21st-century British engineers
British civil engineers
British structural engineers

Tristram Carfrae


The Renwick House is a historic building located in the central part of Davenport, Iowa, United States. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1983.

History
The Renwick family may have built this house in 1867, and various members of the family lived here into the 20th century. Lumber baron William Renwick, a partner in the firm Renwick, Crossett & Shaw, lived here from 1867 to around 1895, when he moved to a mansion he built closer to the Mississippi River. That house eventually became a part of St. Katharine's School. His sisters Margaret and Rebecca Renwick lived here from the mid-1890s to just before World War I. It was during this time that the house was extensively renovated. Rebecca owned her own millinery shop named Renwick and Hannah. The house has subsequently been converted into apartments.

Architecture

When the house was built in the late 1860s, it appears to have followed the Italianate style. This is suggested by the three-stage tower still visible at the back of the house. It features a low, bracketed hipped roof typical of the style. The house sits perpendicular to the street and may have faced a great lawn to the south. The back of the house faces Fifteenth Street. It was converted to the Colonial Revival style when it was renovated in 1905. It features a symmetrical façade and a hipped roof with dormers. The dormers themselves have a gable roof that features partially returned cornices and fluted pilasters that flank the small windows. Egg-and-dart and denticular moldings are found on the house's main cornice. The columns on the main porch follow the Doric order. To the right of the porch is an irregularly shaped solar that has stained glass transom panels over tall windows.

References

External links

Houses completed in 1867
Colonial Revival architecture in Iowa
Houses in Davenport, Iowa
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa
National Register of Historic Places in Davenport, Iowa
1867 establishments in Iowa
Apartment buildings in Iowa

Renwick House (Davenport, Iowa)