Conspiracy

The cast does a marvelous job of fleshing out the documentary evidence to create convincing characters. Kenneth Branagh is especially chilling as SS Chief of Security Reinhard Heydrich, who uses a combination of charm and ruthless power-mongering to gain support for his plans. Colin Firth is fascinating as Wilhelm Stuckart, a lawyer who sees the brutal tactics of the SS as a threat to his own intellectualized anti-Semitism, and Stanley Tucci gives a wonderfully understated performance as Adolf Eichmann.

Conspiracy is a carefully crafted, completely unsensational film that offers ample proof of the banality of evil. There are no histrionics and no comic-book Nazi villains, just a small group of politicians and war-weary soldiers arguing about the meaning of words and the logistics of extermination, calmly preparing to unleash an unimaginable horror on the world. --Simon Leake

On January 20, 1942, with Nazi armies stalled in the snow at the gates of Moscow, a lakeside mansion in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee is the venue for a conference. Fifteen government bureaucrats and high ranking officers of the SS gather. History is advised to remember these otherwise appallingly ordinary representatives of the human species: SS General Reinhard Heydrich (Reich Security Main Office), SS Lt. Colonel Adolf Eichmann (Office of Jewish Affairs), SS Lt. General Heinrich Mueller (Gestapo), Gerhard Klopfer (Nazi Party Chancellery), Wilhelm Kritzinger (Reichs-Chancellery), SS Lt. General Otto Hofmann (Race and Settlement Main Office), Dr. Georg Liebbrandt and Dr. Alfred Meyer (Reichs-Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories), Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart (Reichs-Ministry of the Interior), Undersecretary Martin Luther (Foreign Ministery), SS Major Rudolf Lange (SS Taskforces in Latvia), Director Erich Neumann (Office of the Four Year Plan), Dr. Joseph Buehler and SS Colonel Karl Schoengarth (Government-General of Occupied Poland), and Dr. Roland Freisler (Reichs-Ministry of Justice).

Even after coerced emigration, 132,000 Jews remain in Germany. As the Wehrmacht gobbles up territory, millions more - potentially 11 million - will come under Nazi control. As it's put in this film, there's a burgeoning "storage problem", and the chairman of the meeting, Heydrich (Kenneth Branagh), is calling for unanimous agreement on a "final solution".

As the viewer sees, it's not the concept of the eradication of the Jews from Germany and the occupied territories that fuels the debate, it's the modus operandi, and which individuals, particularly those of impure blood resulting from a confusing variety of mixed marriages, are to be targeted. At one point, even the semantics of the process - "evacuation" vs. "execution" - are at issue. And, of course, it all must be done legally as proscribed by the Nuremburg Laws. Finally, after the group dances around the issue of method, Heydrich and his deputy Eichmann (Stanley Tucci) get to the crux of the matter. The Jews are to be gassed in special camps established for that purpose. At the current stage of technology, the gold standard is apparently 60,000 exterminations a day.

The impact of CONSPIRACY derives from the chilling ordinariness of the conference and its tone. These fifteen might just as well be the top management of a large corporation discussing the eradication of rats from one of its manufacturing sites, or the construction of an assembly line to produce more and better widgets. As a note of interest, nine of those present were lawyers by training.

Branagh renders a positively brilliant performance as the ultimate devil's advocate, who steers the meeting to its foregone conclusion with a mixture of charm and quiet menace. When Kritzinger (David Threfall) objects that Hitler has declared to him personally that execution of the Jews is not his intent, Heydrich cooly reminds him, "Yes, and he will continue to do so." Plausible deniability, you see. And later in a private conversation when Heydrich demands Kritzinger's full support, the SS General remarks that the latter would be a difficult man to bring down - but it could be managed.

At the film's conclusion, the fate of all involved is provided in text overlay. Heydrich was assassinated by Czech partisans. Eichmann, Buehler and Schoengarth were tried and executed. All the rest either went free for lack of war crimes evidence, served time and were released, died of natural causes, were killed in the closing months of the war, or just disappeared. Indeed, Klopfer sold insurance after the war and presumably died in his bed.

The Final Solution took planning. As Eichmann angrily berates an Army chauffeur for engaging on whim in an undignified snowball fight with his fellow drivers awaiting their masters, "Things just don't happen."

The record of the Wannsee Conference which served as the basis for CONSPIRACY came from Luther's copy of the minutes discovered after the war. Ironically, Luther himself was sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1944 for plotting against his boss in the Foreign Ministry.


"Our most important war...."   July 28, 2003
M. G Watson (Los Angeles)
62 out of 65 found this review helpful

"Conspiracy" is a perfect example of what happens when you pair a first-class cast with a first-rate script. You discover (or re-discover) that you do not need explosions, MTV-style editing or gimmickery to tell a good tale. This movie has all the budget and movement of a play, and is entirely dialogue-driven. But it works. Oh boy, does it work.

It is generally credited by historians that the infamous "Wansee Conference" of January 1942 was the real beginning of the Holocaust, i.e. of the Nazi Reich's all-out effort to exterminate the Jews of Europe. Prior to that, the Reich had contented itself with kicking them out of public life, taxing them into beggary, subjecting them to every form of humiliation, and essentially negating their status as human beings. When the war started, however, this policy, known as the 'emigration solution' (i.e., solve the "problem" of Jews living in the Reich by forcing them to emigate) became obsolete. The inefficient and corrupt Nazi bureaucracy was ill-suited even to handle the relatively small population of German Jews; and Nazi conquests, however, quickly increased the number of Jews in German-occupied territories to around eleven million. In other words, the very success of the German military effort in Europe had actually increased the size of the 'Jewish problem' a hundred times over. And since forcible emigration of 11 million people outside the German sphere of influence was not possible, something else had to be done to tackle this 'problem.' But what?

"Conspiracy" is about the bureacratic genesis of the Holocaust. It shows, in more or less real time, a fictionalized version of a real-life conference of 15 officials from the SS/SD, Gestapo, Railway Ministry, Interior Ministry, Government General, and Ministry of Justice, which was chaired by Reinhard Heydrich and organized by Adolf Eichmann. As a movie, however, it is really a study in the essential amorality of bureacracy and, to use a tired phrase, the banality of evil.

First off, the performances are superb. Kenneth Branagh gives probably the best turn of his career as Heydrich, a man who has absolutely no philosophy, ideology or morality other than a Terminator-like determination to carry out his orders, whatever they may entail, and to crush any obstacle in his path. You get the feeling he would be just as content to kill everyone with brown hair or webbed feet if that was his assignment, and if a few fellow Nazis happen to oppose him, then he would be just as happy to 'evacuate' them as any Jews. In fact, the description that Dr. Stuckart uses for the Jewish people in the film, "arrogant, self-obsessed....(but) sublimely clever, and intelligent as well" is actually a very good description of Heydrich. Branagh portrays him as a man with no human qualities himself, but excellent instincts about human nature. He knows when to condescend, when to bully, when to threaten, and when to appeal to self-interest, and he can shift from one to the other and back without a trace of discomfort.

Stanley Tucci, as Eichmann, is also very good. Like Heydrich shifts his personality around like a revolving door depending on what is required of him, but he is also a true-blue bureacrat in the worst sense of the word. To his superiors, especially Heydrich, he is utterly subservient; hovering about like a dog, laughing politely at jokes he doesn't find amusing, attempting with limited success to be 'one of the guys' when Nazi vulgarity rears its head. But to his subordinates he is a coldly arrogant bully, slapping one soldier in the face for throwing snowballs outside, telling another he will pay for a dish he broke by accident. In fact, he reminds me of a couple of schoolteachers I had growing up....and at least one boss.

Colin Firth is brilliant as Wilhelm Stuckart, the lawyer who drafted the Laws for the Protection of German Blood and Honor (better known as the Nuremburg Laws), and who is perfectly content to see all the Jews of Europe sterilized and shipped off
to be used as slave labor, possibly even exterminated wholsesale, so long as it is all done within a 'legal framework' (HIS legal framework). Eichmann characterizes the bureaucrat from hell, then Stuckart is certainly the lawyer from hell; a person who has no gods before the law, and simply cannot abide the idea of the whole crazy scheme being perpetrated without benefit of a legislative blessing. Eleven million murders? That's nothing. But without enacting a law first? Unthinkable!

Ian McNeice, as Stuckart's nemesis Dr. Klopfer, a corpulent Nazi Party bigwig with a disgustingly smug and vulgar way of handling himself. .... He's a raging anti-Semite who is all for killing the Jews, so long as the Party doesn't lose any administrative turf to the SS in the process. He has no respect whatever for the law despite being a lawyer himself (as is almost everyone in the room....go figure that one....); and unlike the brilliant but rather naive Stuckart, Klopfer has no illusions about rule of law in Nazi Germany. We have the power to do what we want, he says; we can always re-write the laws afterwards.

"Conspiracy" was written by Loring Mandel, who deserves special praise for penning a movie that is nothing but conversation but which is still very gripping. I'm surprised some people would quibble with his dramatic interpretation of what happened; how could you make an entertaining about what the actual conference was probably like -- fifteen Nazi lawyers drinking wine, eating canapes, and reading figures about mass deportations and what does or does not constitute a Jew? Mandel's script gets to the heart of the mentality behind the Holocaust, which was that despite being at war with the British Empire, the Soviet Union and the United States of America, despite being outnumbered six to one in manpower and 20 - 1 in industrial capacity, despite fighting on multiple fronts and lacking most of the natural resources necessary for war, and despite the unspoken consequences to themselves and their country's reputation if they lost the war and their 'secret' was exposed, the mentality of WWII Germany was still open to the idea of diverting massive resources into slaughtering defenseless civilians by the million. If that isn't the bureacratic blindness from hell, what isn't?


Inaccurate account, but worth a look   October 5, 2002
29 out of 36 found this review helpful

This is a good film, as long as you don't know the true details of the actual Wansee Conference, which took place in January 1942. "Conspiracy" is loosely based on that fateful conference, with blatant fabrications and bloodthirsty dialogue added for dramatic effect.
In reality, the minutes of the Wansee conference made no direct references to exterminations, gas chambers, etc.; rather the subject matter was pretty dry, mainly focusing on Jewish population statistics and deportation theories. Subtle hints of what was to come ,however, were apparent in some words uttered by Heydrich, Mueller, and Eichmann; most of the other attendees left the conference considering it uneventful and wondering what the point was. There was never a written order by Hitler to exterminate Jews; rather, this directive was issued orally to Himmler, who passed it on down to his henchmen. (The only written order ever found was one in which Hitler ordered the execution of Soviet Commissars.) Despite these distortions of facts, the performances were great and the feel of the whole thing was pretty chilling. Oh, I must point out one huge mistake that can't go unnoticed. In the "features" section of the menu there's a brief clip of "Heydrich" with his face highlighted in white so you can see it. Well, that man is NOT Heydrich!! Heydrich is the tall one standing right behind this guy, and you can only see him for a second...


Interesting   May 5, 2002
14 out of 19 found this review helpful

The Conspiracy is an English version of a 1984 film "The Wannsee Conference" by Heinz Schirk. The former is much better than "The Conspiracy". The Conspiracy speaks of the house the conference took place in as being from a Jewish family which is not the truth (it was donated by a loyal nazi to the SS, after the war all SS property was turned over to the Allies). The movie fails to take into account recent scholarship about Wilhelm Stuckart (who is portrayed as being sympathetic to the Jews). To see a better movie of this horrific event, one must see the 1984 version in German with English subtitles. The 84 version shows more accurately the personalities of those involved. It also shows accurately German military customs, discipline and uniforms. Still, if you can't get the 84 version see this movie but also read the minutes of the conference on the internet.


Chilling   January 16, 2003
Patrick Devenny (New Jersey)
14 out of 16 found this review helpful

This is a movie that makes your skin crawl. True, it does not have any shootings, or mass killings in it. On the surface of it, it's just a movie about a meeting of Nazi's that took place in 1942. However, pay attention, soak the movie in. Conspiracy is a truly disturbing look at Nazi Germany, and the psychopaths that ran it.

Conspiracy is based on a real meeting of high and mid level Nazi officials that look place in 1942, in a mansion at Wannsee, outside Berlin. The meeting was organized by SS General Reinhard Heydrich, who, historically, might be the scariest man ever born. Heydrich ran the SS police state that spanned all of Europe, which murdered thousands of "undesirables" and kept a stranglehold on the Axis world. Heydrich and other SS officials had somewhat covertly been constructing the infrastructure for the "Final Solution" to the Jewish question. Heydrich has also authorized the formation of the nefarious Einsetzgruppens, that roamed the Eastern lands of the Reich, carrying out mass slaughters of Jews and communists. General Heydrich called this meeting in order to inform the organs of the Reich that his plan was going to go forward, with the tacit support of the Fuhrer. His plan would set up a system of death camps, in which Jews would be gassed to death. Millions would die. At Heydrich's side was his aide, the ruthlessly effective Colonel Eichmann. Eichmann was one of the main architects of the final solution, taking a hands on approach on building the Holocaust infrastructure.

This movie does a masterful job of portraying this discussion as it happened. People talk of mass murder like it's an afterthought. The Jews are subhuman, their deaths mean nothing. Interestingly, there was a lot of insider politics going on at the meaning, as the Nazi party heads sought to ensure that their own influence and power would not be co-opted by Heydrich's growing SS apparatus. The discussions are horrifyingly fascinating, as the eventual outcome becomes clear. They all hesitate to say the "kill" word, but there is a general sense of wink wink. It's probably the best representation of Nazi politics I have seen on screen. Some might find a discussion driven movie a little boring, but it had my attention all the way through. The cast of actors did a very good job portraying their real life counterparts. I thought Stanley Tucci did the best job, as the strangely meek but mechanically evil Adolf Eichmann. Kenneth Branagh is excellent as Heydrich, who was amazingly charming while he plans the death of 6 million people. The overall theme of this movie is that educated, civilized men, can often perpetrate the worst evil imaginable. As a somber side note, the end of the movie points out how many of the men who sat at that table managed to escape the responsibility for their crimes, a tragic condemnation of post-war policy.

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