La conferenza del Wannsee

Heinz Schirk masterfully--albeit painfully--captures true Nazi "spirit" as it unfolded at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin, 1942, where the "final solution" was further refined and "perfected." Not only are actors Mattausch, Bockmann, and Beckhaus dead ringers for Heydrich, Eichmann, and Muller, respectively, but Schirk brilliantly highlights the bureaucratization and cold abstraction of Nazi mass murder of the European Jewry.

Excellent rendition and filmed on location , it is based on actual deeds regard to Wannsee conference where decided to adopt the Final Solution . This sensational German production is based on real-life deeds and was subsequently shot in 2001 a HBO film by Frank Pierson with Kenneth Brannagh , Stanley Tucci , Colin Firth, Kevin McNally , among others. It concerns about the meeting of high-ranking Nazi SS and civilian leaders at the Wannsee Conference held on January 20,1942, to plan the Final Solution of the Jewish question. This interesting, important movie depicting, in real time, the conference during which 14 members of the Nazi hierarchy decided in eighty five minutes the logistics and means of effecting the Final Solution. The film is magnificently played by complete casting formed by a top-notch plethora of German actors , though unknown . Special mention to Dietrich Mattausch as cold General Reinhard Heydrich, and Bockmann as Adolf Eichmann. The picture is accurately directed by Heinz Schirk based on the Wannsee Protocol.

Adding more details along with the well developed on the movie, the deeds were happened of the following manner: The meeting took place in the Berlin suburb of Grossen-Wannsee, where the decision was made to adopt the Final Solution, the contemplated extermination of Jews . On Julio 31, 1941, Herman Goering issued orders to Reinhard Heydrich,chief of the SD, the security service , to submit a comprehensive plan of the Jewish question. The meeting was originally scheduled for December 8,1941, but it was to be postpones until noon on January 20, 1942. It was to be followed by a luncheon. Fifteen Nazi bureaucrats were present. Minutes of meeting taken in Protocol that read in part: ¨As a further possibility of solving the question, the evacuation of the Jews of the east can now be substituted for emigration ,after obtaining permission from the Fuehrer to that effect.However ,these actions are merely to be considered as alternative possibilities, even though they will permit us to make all those practical experiences of great importance for the future final solution of the Jewish question. The Jews should in the course of the Final Solution betaken in a suitable manner to the east for use as labor. In big labor gangs ,separated by sex. The Jews capable of work will be brought these areas for road building, in which task undoubtedly a large number will fall through natural diminution. The remnant that is finally able to survive all this must be treated accordingly, since these people, representing a natural selection, are to be regarded as the germ cell a new Jewish development, in case they should succeed and go free. This remnant survivor is undoubtedly the part with the strongest resistance. And they go free as history has proved. In the course of the execution of the Final solution , Europe will be combed from West to east¨. The conference was opened by Heydrich, who declared that he was the plenipotentiary for the final of the Jewish question. He then reviewed the emigration problem. Until this time a plan had been held in readiness to deport all Jews to the island of Magadascar, off the coast of Africa, but the Madagascar Plan had fallen through after the invasion of the USSR on June,22,1941. There was no longer any possibility of transporting Jews in this fashion. Instead of emigration the Fueherer had given his sanction for the evacuation of all Jews to the East as a solution possibility. The evacuees would be organized into huge labor columns. Undoubtedly, a majority would fall through natural diminution. The survivors of this natural selection process, actually the hard core of Jewry and the most dangerous because they could rebuild the Jewish life,would be treated accordingly. Although Heydrich did not elaborate the phrase ¨treated accordingly¨the plain meaning was that, in the course of time,with insufficient food and exhausting work, the survivors would be weakened and ready for the specially equipped extermination camps. The conferees then became involved in a lengthy discussion of the problem of the individuals of mixed race, and that of Jews in mixed marriages. About the half the time was taken up with this special discussion, but not drastic reclassification was made. Then the conferees adjourned for lunch. Thirty copies of the record were made and circulated in the ministries and SS offices. News of the Final Solution traveled quickly through the Nazi bureaucracy. Within a few months the first gas chamber camps were set up in Poland. The events are known as Wannsee Protocol by Martin Luther's copy of the Conference minutes was discovered in the files of the German Foreign by American investigators in 1947.It is the only record of the meeting that survives. Destination of the Conference participants is the following : Reinhard Heydrich killed in Praga. Gestapo Chied Heinrich Muller, disappeared after the war. Dr Gerhard Klopfer, arrested 1945 for war crimes, discharged for lack of evidence,died 1987. Dr Krtzinger, arrested 1945,declarated ashamed of Nazi atrocities released 1947. Otto Hoffman arrested 1945,sentenced to 25 years. Dr Alfred Meyer committed suicide in the Spring of 1945.Dr Stuckard sentenced 1949 to time served. Martin Luther sent to concentration camp,died of heart attack 1945. Dr Buhler arrested 1945,executed 1948,Poland. SS colonel Schongarth executed 1946. And Colonel Adolf Eichmann captured in Argentina by Israeli agents 1960,tried, convicted and hanged for crimes against humanity,Jerusalem,May 31,1962 .

This movie is a fascinating 'fly on the wall' look at the infamous Wannsee Conference held on 20 Jan 1942. As they snack on food and sip on fine French Wines, the 'paper pushers', 'yes men', 'intellectuals' and 'hatchet men' of the Third Reich debate the fate of 11 million people.

There is another movie that also looks at this same 90 min. meeting called 'Conspiracy' - which is available on DVD & VHS through Amazon.com. Although the 'WannseeKonferenz' is the better movie (and 'Conspiracy' sometimes comes across as a flashy imitation), I strongly urge everyone to watch both movies. Both movies have the same people attending the conference, but how each attendee is portrayed at the conference is strikingly different. Most of the attendees in 'Conspiracy' (except for Dr. Klopfer) are viewed as flawed intellectuals, but full of grace, charm and manners (which makes a nice stark comparison with what they are discussing). Almost all of the attendees in 'The Wannsee Conference' (except for the female secretary) are shown as crude, corrupt pigs that differ with each other only as to how to divide their 'power'. In particular after watching both versions, I am most curious as to the 'real' Major Lange. The crude drunken Major Lange of 'The Wannsee Conference' seems more likely to be butchering 1000's of Jews at Riga than the soft spoken, charming, well mannered Major Lange of 'Conspiracy'.

Far above the bathetic histrionics of Kenneth Branagh in the recent "Conspiracy", this crisply chilling, almost real-time reenactment is among the most convincing works of historical evocation on celluloid.

Not so much because its overall interpretation is historically valid: as I noted in my review of "Conspiracy", there are grave doubts whether the Wannsee meeting can bear anything like the watershed significance historians imputed to it between c. 1960 and 1980. More recent research has pointed to the Conference being more or less what the one remaining "Protokoll" (summary minutes) stated: a second-level pow-wow of bureaucrats to arrange for the deportation of Jews to the German-occupied East, not a master plan for their destruction cooked up by leading Nazis.

But that is by the way. "Wannseekonferenz" ably conveys the peculiar ethos of German (by no means all Nazi) officials and soldiers in the pivotal years of World War Two, when the nation seemed to be on top of Europe but was already getting jitters about its staying power. As the Interior Ministry's moderate Dr Stuckart, between wipes of his nose, points out: neither the British Empire nor the Soviet Union has yet been defeated, America is about to join in (the date is a month after Pearl Harbor) and there is danger in sweeping assimilated Jews and mixed-race people out of the Reich. Some will escape to become mortal enemies of it when they might be co-opted. Other participants crudely call for total banishment of Jewry from the Altreich and the Polish "Generalgouvernement", grumbling about disease; but there are war-production and morale arguments on the other side, and the uniforms who start by seeming to spring wholesale evacuation on the suits as a fait accompli- Heydrich and "my Jewish consultant, Eichmann"- are willing to ponder exemptions.

All this is a far cry from the Goldhagenesque "eliminationist antisemitism" uncritically portrayed in "Conspiracy". The German film is a more plausible picture of the clashes and compromises, the tired banter and one-upmanship, the relief of dirty jokes and the solemn courtesies one would expect of a gaggle of Teutonic bureaucrats who don't feel as assured of victory as they have to pretend. The film is little more than facial expressions and dialogue, batted to and fro across the table; but every actor is right inside his part. The sense of a warped community is potent, and the prowling encirclement by Heinz Schirk's camera reinforces this solidarity instead of just trying to fluff up the monotony of a bunch of men (and one shockable stenographer) talking.

Dietrich Mattausch looks far more like the real Reinhard Heydrich- tall, elegant fencer and violinist with a streak of treachery- than stocky little Branagh. His unfailing politeness, with a hint of cold steel underneath, is more convincing than Branagh's Demon King. This man knows what he wants, but his chairmanship is skilfully emollient.

Gerd Bockmann's Eichmann is assiduous and dispassionate like the real Adolf E, who had no great personal animus towards Jews but was determined to get ahead in his sordid profession of "dispatcher". Peter Fitz as Stuckart, the Jonah of the gathering, hints at distaste for the whole business while manfully arguing a pragmatic case for letting sleeping dogs lie. Among the smaller parts, Martin Luttge as Major Dr Rudolf Lange- intellectual turned persecutor in an SS Special Action Group- stands out for his affectation of rough, half-reluctant practicality, telling civilian papershufflers the score.

Inevitably a few embroideries have crept in: Heydrich's pursuit of the secretary, Lange's dog, the contemptuous anecdote about the Papal Nuncio. As if tacitly admitting the lack of hard evidence for orchestrated genocide from the minutes, the screenplay chucks in a throwaway line: Heydrich speaks of finding a new way of killing Jews fast by "learning to take the Fuhrer literally". Stuckart tells Dr Kritzinger that this refers to a "Mein Kampf" passage about how the Great War could have been won if subversive, high-ranking German Jews back home had been held under poison gas. We are supposed to infer a whiff of Zyklon B from this; but as is clear in context, Hitler meant that those Jews should have had to inhale British poison gas as front-line soldiers, like himself.

Such gaseous garnishings were probably required to make the film an accepted part of the curriculum in the guilt-ridden German system of historical re-education. But they do not seriously detract from this superbly atmospheric chamber piece.

I was able to see this film at a film festival, where the director spoke afterward about how the film was created. As I had suspected while watching the film, the source for the script was not just the minutes of the meeting, which mention very little of the detailed discussions which occurred that day, but as well what the director called the "Eichmann protocol," that is, transcripts of the interviews conducted by the prosecutors at Eichmann's trial in Jerusalem. Grupenfeurher is correct when he says that the minutes of the conference never mention extermination. But Eichmann's later, extensive, comments prove that that is precisely what was being discussed. For a detailed look at the conference, the best place to begin is Mark Roseman's book, "The Villa, the Lake, and the Meeting: Wansee and the Final Solution." But there are also comments noted in Goebels' diary, and interdepartmenal memos from those who were invited to the conference itself, and much other evidence besides. A good discussion of the process leading to the genocide can be found in Christopher Browning's "Origins of the Final Solution," and a more abbreviated discussion in volume two of Ian Kershaw's biography of Hitler, "Nemesis."