The Wannsee Conference

What I want to do here (besides point you to those reviews) is to note that The Wannsee Conference is a German language film with white English subtitles. Sometimes the subtitles are superimposed over a white background and the words disappear. That is why state of the art subtitles are yellow so that they don't get lost in the background. Otherwise the subtitles are very good, translating what needs to be translated and ignoring the extraneous.

I also want to note that the somewhat miraculous script by Paul Mommertz is very much like a stage play with most of the action essentially confined to one set with the various players delivering their lines as the camera focuses on them, much as a spotlight might. I say "miraculous" because Mommertz forged his screenplay from the banal, bureaucratic and often euphemistic language used by the historical Nazis as they formulated the so-called "Final Solution." How to make such material dramatic was the problem Mommertz and Director Heinz Schirk faced. They achieved the nearly impossible through the subtle use of what I might call everyday "reality intrusions": the dog barking, the vainglorious Reinhard Heydrich tripping over a briefcase as he is posturing as the grand architect and fuhrer of the Holocaust, the stenographer flirting (and Heydrich's calculated, chilling affirmative response), the greedy drinking, the "Nazi rally" thumping of the table, the turf wars, the boorish jokes, etc. These served to highlight by contrast the horror that these men were so bureaucratically entertaining. Note too that when the stenographer asks if a verbatim report is desired, she is told that a detailed report will suffice. Thus the dumb brute reality could be edited later in a George Orwellian manner to further bureaucratize and euphemize what they were doing.

What a truly verbatim report might have revealed is the point of this film.

This is a work of art, and I want to say that real art, to the extent that it is didactic, fails. If the artist tries to teach a lesson or show us the way and the light through a human story, to that extent he or she loses control and becomes an advertiser, a propagandist, a preacher. We as audience or readers become not participants anymore but objects. A work of art is always a two-way street of participation between the artist and those viewing the art. We might agree with the message or we might not, but we are no longer equal participants in the experience.

Yet what a work of art does is demonstrate a human truth through form. It is almost always an emotional truth. The Greeks emphasized tragedy because they understood the cathartic emotional experience that tragedy brings. What Mommertz and Schirk have done is present the truth as best they could discover it, and then they ran the closing credits. What we as audience experience depends on how well we participated, and what we brought as human beings to the experience. How well we concentrate, how aware we are of what is going on, how alert--these too are important. The Swannsee Conference is a demanding film, but it is surprising how quickly it moves, how engaged we become. The tension is not in what will happen at the end, of course. Instead the tension is in how it happens. We are held in thrall of discovering the essential nature of this most horrific and incredible evil done by the Nazis. And what we find out is that it was above all else banal and bureaucratic.

This is its essence: the dehumanization of the objects upon which the evil is worked. It can be done no other way. It has been said that for good men to do evil it takes religious commitment. For ordinary men it is necessary to dehumanize. When Stuckart complains that women and children are being killed, he is told, "Women and children are Jews too."


A Neglected Masterpiece   May 26, 2005
Douglas Scott (Lake Oswego OR)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful

Within a huge dramatic category, the Holocaust, the Wannsee Conference is bewilderingly neglected -- perhaps because of its German provenance. For whatever reason, that neglect is a loss for everyone.
A few personal words: in the 1950s, I was in US military intelligece in Germany. I remember more than a few wonderful evenings spent along the Wannsee in Berlin. I was by those standards a well-informed young man. Yet I had no idea that only a few kilometers away one of the most obscene events in history happened in January 1942.
Also, I spent much of the 1980s in Corporate America -- often in the highest-level meetings where plans prepared the world in which we now live.
Watching the Wannsee Conference, I recognized both my careers.
Here, amid gemuetlich comforts, high-ranking officials charmingly ratified a map to Hell.
This film is a superb account of the past. It is also, much more importantly, a premonition of an "unthinkable" future.


Could not possibly be better.   July 5, 2004
Bernard Chapin (CHICAGO! USA)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

There was no reason to even consider making, "Conspiracy", as this film cannot be improvemed upon. The Mommertz screenplay is topnotch with all the SS hierarchy and bureaucraten having very believable lines in a setting that is just banal enough to ring completely true. The depcition of Heydrich is haunting and Eichmann appears to be the classic bicycle kicker as he is deferential to all superiors but abusive to his subordinates. With "Gestapo" Muller, the viewer immediately understands that his is a marginal talent as his demeanor and also his repetition of the word "elegant" five times in the course of the movie showcases. In this film, the good guys are merely the ones who are not 100% evil. It is a primer on human nature and an all around must see.


Footnotes   December 25, 2005
Pedant (West Lebanon, NH USA)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

Other reviews have found this film to be far superior to "Conspiracy". One noted its superior detail on the 'final solution' options; two noted superior acting. In fact, far more detail is given in "Conspiracy", even if there is no conference record cited to support it. As for acting, "Conspiracy" is worth a close look, especially for Colin Firth's splendid performance. Final 'footnote': As one review noted, this film has a flirtatious female stenographer whom Heydrich invites to join him in Prague . She is not seen in "Conspiracy", where there is only a uniformed male steno.. Who has it right??
My suggestion: watch both films.


Wansee Conference: Evil in the Light of Day   June 18, 2004
D. Haake (Heidelberg, Germany (U.S. Army))
6 out of 7 found this review helpful

This Reenactment of the Wansee Conference is a must see for the serious historian and the interested student alike. The German spoken is flawless and evokes the mood and attitude of those present at the conference. If you have ever been to the Wansee area, outside Berlin, it is beautiful there. They chose a setting like this to lay down the plans (actually already in motion) for the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". To hear the candid anti-semitic speech, and the way the Nazis refer to the Polish and other groups in such cold, stark terms is an eye opener. The mood is like that of a business meeting as they discuss the efficient elimination of European Jews. The euphamistic terms that they use, such as "evacuation to the east", show how they skirt the issue without skirting it. The main purpose of this SS organized meeting is to share responsibility with the Government officials present. World conquest is spoken of as if it is inevitable. The arrogance of Reinhard Heydrich is sobering.
The more recent film "Conspiracy" is also a reenactment of this meeting, but to hear it in the original language and tone of German speech and mannerism is a bonus. Hopefully this one will be on DVD in the next few years.