Conspiracy (2001 film)
| Conspiracy | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Written by | Loring Mandel |
| Directed by | Frank Pierson |
| Starring |
Kenneth Branagh Stanley Tucci Colin Firth Ian McNeice Kevin McNally David Threlfall |
| Composer | Dennis McCarthy |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom United States |
| Original languages | English German |
| Production | |
| Producers | Nick Gillott Frank Pierson |
| Cinematography | Stephen Goldblatt |
| Editor | Peter Zinner |
| Running time | 96 minutes |
| Production companies |
BBC HBO Films |
| Original release | |
| Network | HBO |
| Release | 19 May 2001 |
Conspiracy is a 2001 made-for-television drama film that dramatises the 1942 Wannsee Conference. Using the authentic script taken from the only surviving transcript recorded during the meeting, the film delves into the psychology of Nazi officials involved in the "Final Solution of the Jewish question" during World War II.
The film was written by Loring Mandel and directed by Frank Pierson. Its ensemble cast includes Kenneth Branagh, Stanley Tucci, Colin Firth and David Threlfall. Branagh won an Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor, and Tucci was awarded a Golden Globe Award for his supporting role.
Plot
On 20 January 1942, Nazi officials hold a conference at a villa in Wannsee, a wealthy district on the outskirts of Berlin, to determine the method by which they will make Germany's territory free of Jews, including the occupied countries of Poland, Reichskommissariat Ostland, Czechoslovakia and France.
Chairing the meeting is Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Reich Security Main Office, who states he has been given a mandate in the form of a directive from Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring to achieve a "complete solution of the Jewish question." Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger responds that the meeting is pointless and that the Jewish question has already been settled. Heydrich announces that the government's policy will change from emigration to "evacuation", and Fascist Italy will be forced to cooperate. There is consternation over the use of euphemisms from several of the participants, and Heydrich insinuates a policy of genocide that will become more explicit as the meeting progresses.
The men discuss sterilisation and exemptions for mixed-race Jews who have one or more non-Jewish grandparents. Heydrich's willingness to entertain various competing ideas suggests the ultimate fate of the Jews has not been decided. As the discussion continues, however, it becomes evident to the participants that the purpose of the meeting is not to formulate policy but to receive direction from the SS. Heydrich calls a break in the proceedings, and after praising Stuckart aloud takes him aside to warn him about the consequences of his stubbornness. On reconvening, Heydrich reveals in frank detail the policy that had already been decided before the meeting convened: the wholesale extermination of Europe's Jewish population using gas chambers.
SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann then reveals that the SS has been building extermination camps at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka, and making preparations for the "Final Solution" under the noses of Germany's civilian bureaucrats. Eichmann describes the method that will be used: gassing of Jews in gas chambers built at locations such as Auschwitz.
Throughout the meeting and over refreshments attendees raise other side issues, reflecting the interests of their respective work areas, including concerns that cholera and typhus could break out from the overpopulated ghettos in Poland. A break is called and this time it is Kritzinger's turn to be taken aside and intimidated by Heydrich. Kritzinger realizes that any hopes he had of assuring liveable conditions for the Jewish population are unrealistic. In return, he tells Heydrich a cautionary tale about a man consumed by hatred of his father, so much so that his life loses its meaning once his father dies. Heydrich later interprets this as a warning that a similar fate awaits them.
Heydrich then recalls and concludes the meeting. He also asks for explicit assent and support from each official, one by one. After giving careful instructions on the secrecy of the minutes and notes of the meeting, they adjourn and begin to depart.
As the officials depart, a brief account of the fate of each one is given. Most of the members either died during the war or were arrested immediately after; two, Josef Bühler and Karl Eberhard Schongarth, are convicted by Allied military tribunals and executed, and the others acquitted to live a peaceful life in postwar West Germany. Heydrich would be assassinated by Czechoslovak partisans for his brutal rule in Bohemia and Moravia within six months, while Eichmann would flee to Buenos Aires but be captured, tried and sentenced to death by Israel in the 1960s. The film ends with the house tidied up and all records of the meeting destroyed as if it had never happened. The final card before the credits reveals that Luther's copy of the Wannsee minutes, recovered by the US Army in the archives of the German Foreign Office in 1947, was the only record of the conference to survive.
Cast
- Kenneth Branagh as SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich: Chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) and Deputy Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia.
- Stanley Tucci as SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann: Head of RSHA IV B4.
- Colin Firth as SS-Brigadeführer Dr Wilhelm Stuckart: State Secretary, Reich Ministry for the Interior.
- Ian McNeice as SS-Oberführer Dr Gerhard Klopfer: State Secretary, Party Chancellery.
- Kevin McNally as Martin Luther: Undersecretary and SS liaison, Foreign Ministry.
- David Threlfall as Ministerialdirektor Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger: Deputy Head, Reich Chancellery.
- Ewan Stewart as Dr Georg Leibbrandt: Head of Political Department, Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories.
- Brian Pettifer as Gauleiter Dr Alfred Meyer: Deputy Reich Minister, Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories.
- Nicholas Woodeson as SS-Gruppenführer Otto Hofmann: Chief of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office.
- Jonathan Coy as SS-Sturmbannführer Erich Neumann: Director, Office of the Four Year Plan.
- Brendan Coyle as SS-Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller: Chief of RSHA Department IV (the Gestapo).
- Ben Daniels as Dr Josef Bühler: State Secretary for the General Government of occupied Poland.
- Barnaby Kay as SS-Sturmbannführer Dr Rudolf Lange: Commander of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) in Latvia.
- Owen Teale as Dr Roland Freisler: State Secretary, Reich Ministry of Justice.
- Peter Sullivan as SS-Oberführer Dr Karl Eberhard Schöngarth: SD officer assigned to the General Government.
Additional cast members include:
- Tom Hiddleston, in one of his first film roles, briefly appears in the beginning and end as a telephone operator.
- Ross O'Hennessy, appears in the beginning and middle as the SS Officer in charge of the Building.
Reception
Critical reception
Conspiracy has a 100% approval rating from 7 critic reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.
James Rampton in The Independent praised the film:
"Showing as part of the BBC's commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day, Frank Pierson's film underscores only too well the old maxim that evil prospers when good men do nothing."
— James Rampton
An impressed Austin Film Society had a lengthy review of the film and details about its making.