Starring: Philipp Hochmair, Johannes Allmayer, Maximilian Bruckner, Godehard Giese
Distributor: Pivot Pictures
Runtime: 108 mins. Reviewed in Aug 2022
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc
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A re-enactment of the Nazi Conference at Lake Wannsee in January 1942 where ‘The Final Solution to the Jewish Question’ – the Holocaust – is determined.
In January 1942 (80 years ago) World War II had been going for more than two years. Pearl Harbor had been bombed a month before and German forces were advancing on Moscow. In that January, the head of the security police, based in Prague, Reinhard Heydrich, calls a conference of 15 Nazi authorities to his schloss on Lake Wannsee, south-west of Berlin. The conference was scheduled for only 90 minutes, with some refreshment breaks.
For many, this is the most sinister conference in world history. Someone labelled it ‘a blueprint for genocide’. The item on the agenda was ‘The Final Solution to the Jewish Question’. The theory for further action was finalised under the 90 minutes allocated, with the repercussions – the Holocaust –to become the atrocity of the 20th century.
The conference was filmed for German television in 1984 with the same title, a brief but effective film, based on notes and minutes, communicating the tone and reality of the conference. There was a version for US/UK television, Conspiracy (2001), powerful in its impact with the same intense dialogue, but with Kenneth Branagh as Heydrich and Stanley Tucci as Eichmann.
This film requires close attention – to the words and the body language of those participating. Heydrich is the presider with a hail-fellow-well-met manner, welcoming everyone, a measured kind of smile on his face. He is the perfect host, absolutely confident in what he wants to achieve and how to achieve it, facilitating the discussions and the arguments, going into private consultations with some of the group, happily concluding the agenda to his liking.
[Older audiences and filmgoers will know that Heydrich was called by Hitler, ‘the man with the iron heart’ (the title of one of the films about him). He had been Hitler’s pick for eliminating those against the Nazi regime, and especially as the organiser of Kristallnacht (‘Night of the broken glass’, when on 9 November 1938 a Nazi pogrom throughout Germany during which Jews were killed and their property destroyed). Within five months of the Wansee Conference, Heydrich while back in Prague was ambushed by the local resistance and fatally wounded. Reprisals included the destruction of villages and slaughter of inhabitants. There have been many films and television programs on this issue.]
While it may be difficult to remember who each of the members of the Conference is and what they represent, they are all introduced, with the audience having a chance to listen to their talk, friendships, rivalries, animosities, to look at their faces, their appearances, how they sat at the desks, how they intervened.
We soon realise if we haven’t quite remembered, that each of the men (and there was a female notary) takes it for granted that Jews are the enemy – the ones who disrupt finances, overturn society norms. And, of course, there is the whole issue of Aryan supremacy and racial contamination. We are, and yet at the same time not, amazed at these men’s attitudes, their taking for granted that the Jews are evil and should be eliminated. They are generally cool, calmly steeped in their attitude, which they would not think of describing as in any way as racist or prejudiced. For them, this is a situation to be addressed – and Heydrich notes they are the generation with to the task to achieve this.
While Heydrich smiles, there is no humour or leeway in Eichmann’s character. He is certainly the ‘intelligence’ behind the Final Solution, he comes across as the complete, straightforward, but detail- nuanced, bureaucrat. He has all the information, he has all the statistics, ready to quote without consultation.
[Watching Eichmann in this film, many will think of where he was 20 years later – being tracked down in Argentina, returned to Jerusalem, and the public trial of the ‘man in the glass booth’, and his execution. Watching these men, proud of their power and influence, arguing their cases, some almost prim, enjoying their coffee breaks and the salmon being served, we remember that Hannah Arendt spoke of ‘the banality of evil’.]
Watching this film and listening to the dialogue requires great concentration, but several characters do stand out, especially Dr Stuckart, who framed a great deal of the legislation against the Jews. A lawyer, absolutely rigid in his reliance of the law, continually argues his case, but is neatly cajoled by Heydrich into agreeing with him in a private conversation.
There is also the doctor who seems a humanitarian, but has no scruples in the elimination of the Jews. Rather, he gives statistics of how long it would take German soldiers to shoot the thousands, hundreds of thousands, to be eliminated, the amount of blood, the disturbing psychological effect on the German soldiers. When Eichmann reveals the gas solution, he agrees that this is the most humane method, the least disturbing effect on the soldier executioners.
It was that kind of conference.
Heydrich and Eichmann had pre-determined solutions but needed the official discussion to canvass the issues and thrash out difficulties and logistics. Where were the camps to be located? Should they be near towns? How should the Jews be transported to the camps? What was the role of women and children? (There was a great deal of legal discussions about percentages of Jewish blood and of Aryan-Jewish marriages). What kind of trains, passenger or freight? How would the transition from railway station to gas chambers be managed. What about the transportation of the gas… Yes, a blueprint for genocide.
While The Conference may not be an attractive night out at the cinema, one hopes that it will be viewed by large audiences on television, and it will be a significant resource for those studying the history of World War II, Nazism, the ‘Jewish Question’, the Holocaust.
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