Filming is to begin next week in Berlin on “Valkyrie,” named after the code name of the plot. Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager, 89, told a German Newspaper that the commotion in Germany over the Hollywood actor’s religious beliefs in no way disqualified him to play the part of Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg in “Valkyrie”
“I think it is good that Cruise is playing Stauffenberg,” Boeselager said in an interview to be printed Wednesday.

Boeselager belonged to Stauffenberg’s cadre of aristocratic military officers who conspired to kill Hitler in 1944.

The group planted a bomb under an oak table in Hitler’s headquarters in East Prussia.

But the Nazi leader survived with slight injuries because another officer had moved the briefcase containing the explosives behind a thick leg of the oak table.

Stauffenberg was found later that night and executed by firing squad alongside other officers at the Bendlerblock, then the army headquarters in Berlin which now servers as a memorial to the German resistance.

Boeselager, who had acquired the explosives used in the attempt on Hitler’s life, said he believed the Hollywood thriller had an important message to send to international viewers.