Treatment Sample

STAUFFENBERG
“One man, one briefcase, one bomb”

Germany, July 1944:  A country teetering on the edge of disaster.  Chaos everywhere.  The Allies have landed in France, pushing the Western front toward the center of Europe.  The Russians are approaching from the East, executing German prisoners as they approach the border.  Nightly bombing raids send ordinary citizens running to shelters in panic, destroying their homes and leaving them with nothing except the clothes on their backs.  And when the bombs end, the fires begin, burning what is left of entire neighborhoods to the ground.  As people slowly emerge from hiding, they must face the elements, huddling together in whatever structures they can find still standing, where they can only hope that the brick and mortar remains true.  Meanwhile, food is scarce.  People are starving.  Some lie dying in the streets.  Others find scraps in trash heaps.  Whatever they find, they eat…if they can keep it for themselves.  There is danger everywhere…without and within.

For this is a country not only facing annihilation by the hand of the enemy but by the hand of those who call themselves leaders.  Where fear of the Gestapo rules the hearts and minds of every single man, woman and child.  Where saying the wrong thing or looking the wrong way can result in a whisper to the SS, a whisper that results in only one thing - death.  And not just for ordinary citizens.  The officer corps itself, up to the highest ranking General, faces summary dismissal and execution if they even hint that the war is lost and that they oppose those in charge.  No one is safe. 

One man has brought this devastation.  One man, whose appetite for destruction knows no limits.  One man, who only a few years before proclaimed The Thousand Year Reich.  One man who has brought the entire world to its knees:  Adolf Hitler.

It is the mission of Claus Philip Schenck von Stauffenberg to rid the world of this scourge.  To rise above the fear, above his own doubts, above his senior officers who cower in fear and refuse to do the right thing, the honorable thing, the thing that he himself knows must be done.  Assassinate Adolf Hitler.

One man.  One briefcase.  One bomb.  Enter the “Wolf’s Lair,” and blow up the most vilified man on the planet.  Succeed and launch a coup that will bring Germany out of the darkness and change the course of history or fail and face certain death.  That is the mission. 

In Germany, Claus must reconcile what he has seen with his former tacit approval of Hitler, the Third Reich and the war.  But he cannot.  Not now.  Not after what he has witnessed.  He goes to every General he can, including a former respected colleague, General Ludwig Beck, hoping that they will listen to him and do something.  Do what has to be done.  Remove Hitler from power.  But the Generals are afraid.  The Third Reich is a dangerous place for everyone, including them.  Even General Beck, who once tried to lead a coup in 1938, refuses him.

Frustrated and tired, Claus realizes he cannot stay in Berlin any longer.  He is a mere Captain and there is nothing he can do, not now, not from where he stands, so he requests a transfer to Africa where he can be a soldier – the only thing he’s ever wanted to be. 

Injured in battle, his right hand and two fingers on his left amputated and his left eye removed, he returns home to convalesce only to find General Beck has become involved in a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler.  Claus, unsure and still shaken by his experiences in Africa, joins the  nascent group only to find the conspirators doing little but arguing amongst themselves while an SS officer named Gerhard Pruter has marked them all as targets of an investigation. 

Linked together by a shared childhood, Claus and Gerhard must struggle against one another to find a semblance of truth in a world of lies and deceit.  Each must face betrayal by someone he trusts.  And each must ultimately make a choice.  To live or to sacrifice himself for a greater purpose. 

As the stakes grow higher and the German armies are surrounded on all sides, as nightly bombing raids rain death, destruction and chaos on German cities, the threat of collapse is imminent.  The walls are closing in.  The madness spreads.  Deals are made.  Plots are hatched.  Loyalties are tested.  Every man must make his choice.  And no matter the choice, each man will pay the price for his actions.  Some will walk the path to destruction.  Others will follow the road to salvation.  There is no escape.

Stauffenberg will make you feel as if you have lived and suffered through the darkest hours of Germany yet leave you with the sense that redemption is always possible - that through the darkness, through the chaos, and through the unimaginable horrors, one thing shall never die, one thing remains no matter what terrors are beholden, one thing which sustains us, feeds us, nurtures us.  That thing is everlasting hope.