The 2001 film “Conspiracy” is a made-for-television drama that portrays the 1942 Wannsee Conference, a crucial event in Nazi Germany’s struggle to eliminate Jews efficiently, cheaply, and quickly. The film uses an authentic script from the only surviving transcript, with Kenneth Branagh and Stanley Tucci playing key roles. The movie is based on existing documentation and is considered accurate, although there are minor inaccuracies in terms of casting and acting.
The film’s exaggeration of Stuckart’s dissatisfaction and Kritzinger’s dissent can be explained by the filmmakers’ dramatic license. However, it has been claimed that the stenographer was a female secretary (Sekretärin), which does not necessarily mean that the film is more historically accurate. Conspiracy’s most dramatic deviation from the Protokoll is its presentation of a meeting that lasted ninety minutes.
The plot and dialogue are based off the real-time footage of the conference, which lasted 90 minutes. The film’s portrayal of the conference is dramatic and shocking, as it highlights the Nazis’ view on what to do with the Jews living in their country.
In conclusion, “Conspiracy” is a film that accurately portrays the Wannsee Conference, focusing on the challenges faced by the Nazi regime in eradicating Jews. While the film may not be entirely accurate, it serves as a testament to the power of meetings and the importance of accurate storytelling. The film’s portrayal of the conference and its impact on the lives of Jews during the Holocaust remains a topic of debate among historians and critics.
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The long takes are part of what makes the film spellbinding, I think. You are IN that room. You hear Eichmann tell the stenographer when to stop keying what’s being said. You crouch between the seated men. You can almost smell the cigars. Somewhere I read Pierson chose mostly actors with stage experience – particularly Shakespearean – because they were used to delivering extended dialogues because he wanted those long, tense, unbroken exchanges that way.
A favourite of mine, truly frightening. And a masterpiece. Anyone who has been in large corporate meetings will spot the standard roles- the premade decision just requiring a rubber stamp, the person who is always talking but treated with derision, the technical expert bringing up technical (not moral) objections, pressure being brought upon individuals in the break etc. It’s all so ordinary, it should be compulsory for anyone who thinks their own people could not do terrible things.
This was a truly shocking movie. I watched this movie back in 2001 on HBO with a husband and wife friend of mine who were Holocaust survivors. The lady fainted twice when 3 of us were perusal it, but thanks to her resiliency and courage she watched it to the end. They were both teenagers when they were freed from the concentration camp that Reinhard Heydrich was so casually describing in the movie. As was brilliantly demonstrated in the movie, EVIL comes in a very normal form. There are no ONLY ONE DAY Dictators. Beware of the lies.
The idea that the Nazi mass-murders were banal is a truly terrifying one because it inevitably leads to the question: would I have been any different? In a way, we need these men to be monsters, to be as different from us as possible. We need them to be deranged psychopaths, or moustache-twirling villains, because if they are the same as us, are we then the same as them? If ordinary people, and not otherworldly monsters, commit such evil acts, and I am an ordinary person….. No no! That’s too scary. Let’s all take comfort in portraying these men as being as different from us as possible. And that is what makes this movie so terrifying.
i have seen this movie a number of times and consider it to be one of the best movies that takes the meaning of evil and flips it on its head. Far too often people are just called evil as if the Devil possessed them and made them do it against there will. In this movie,, evil is banal, complicit, and attentive to details. It is human beings doing evil things and being fully cognizant of what they are doing the whole time.
Excellent movie, and one of the best I’ve seen. I have watched it waaaaay toooooo many times to count. The story after the meeting during casual drinks 😶 after THAT meeting is chilling, and the differing povs is so captivating to me in varying ways…..the emotions. The drinks story: when you’re mind thinks one way in such a key way, but you’re still so much alike as the very people you just met with, and will continue to work with but you know what happened and will….worsening. The entire movie second by second is amazing 🌌
At about the 1:20 mark “Conspiracy” (the movie) works as historical re-creation of the minutes (secretary’s notes taken during the meeting) …” The original notes still exist. They contain the names of everybody that attended the (February 1942) meeting depected in this movie. The content of the notes was essentially the script for the movie. The head of the meeting was Reinhardt Hydrich (spelling?) also known as the Butcher. Hydrich was assinated by two Czech men who escaped to the U.K. in 1939, learned how to be commandos, and then returned to Czechoslovakia some months after the meeting portrayed in this movie by way of parachutes from a British airplane. A few days after arriving the Czech commandos terminated Hydrich while Hydrich was in an automobile. In retaliation, the (black uniformed) Albeteng (spelling?) SS terminated every civilian in a nearby town (hundreds of people) by way of roaming firing squads.
It should be mentioned that Conspiracy is based on the 1984 German TV production “Die Wannseekonferenz”, with a chilling Dieter Mattausch in the role of Heydrich, who, contrary what was stated in this clip, was not “chief” of the SS, that was Himmler, but the head of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, a chiefly administrative government agency. The TV production was time that it lasted the exact time of the conference. It can be found Here on YouTube with subtitles. The problem with Conspiracy is that it tries to upnazi various participants, such as Klopfer, to pander to the anglosaxon trope expectations of Nazi behaviour. The people in this conference were top level representatives of their various ministries, working on an administrative problem. Think of junior ministers and ministerial department chiefs. Upnaziing each other was just not on. The main conflict, hinted at in Conspiracy, was the question of how the matter at hand could be accomplished in their own legal framework to created legal certainty within the Reich. Stuckard was adamant about this point. The exception might be found in the SS ranks, but even there, the low man on the totem pole, Rudolf Lange, who actually was the only real executioner at the table, was a jurist with a legal doctorate, as we’re quite a few of his colleges. Of the four Einsatzgruppen leaders, all for were jurists and three had doctorates, one even two. In 2022, the German TV Network ZDF aired another production of this conference with the same title.
This movie showed the pure evil of the Nazis. It was chilling to watch men decide how to best exterminate over six million innocent men, women, and children. My grandfather was in the Pacific theatre as a flight engineer and aircraft maintenance chief while my wife’s grandfather was in the 10th Mountain Div. fighting Nazis in Italy. Two Florida boys kicking ass and taking names. Truly the greatest generation. My grandfather was my hero and inspired me to serve. Best time of my life. Cheers from America.
I love this movie and have watched it maybe 100 times. It’s part nostalgia for me as it came out when I was about 22. I had the DVD at one point. But I let a girl borrow it who was also into WW2 stuff. I never got it back after we had a falling out. But I purchased it on Youtube and it’s one of those movies I can watch when nothing else interests me.
Chilling movie. But it should be mentioned that practically all of the dialog is made up. The minutes of the meeting only dealt with generalities. And even those were highly modified by Heydrich. Also, every single word away from the table is complete fiction. Simply invented by the writer(s). A German TV movie version of the same meeting (‘The Wannsee Conference’ from 1984) is almost totally different. Though – of course – the horrific basics of the Holocaust are the same. ☮
Although the movie is interesting, I never liked Branaugh’s interpretation of Heydrich. Branuagh in the film frequently dictates something to someone else and the follows up with a smile, that smile is generally a psychological cue people do as a way of giving an order but subtly saying “we’re still friends.” Heydrich didn’t really behave that way, he was commanding and incredibly arrogant, he didn’t give a shit if an underrank was happy or not with an order. Branaugh behaves like a maniacal villain while Heydrich was more of a dark, stone cold individual, even Hitler described him as having an “iron heart”.