THE WANNSEE CONFERENCE Movie Review

Wannseekonferenz

1984 Heinz Schirk

On Tuesday, January 20, 1942, key members of the Nazi party and the German government bureaucracy met at a house in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee. The meeting was called by Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich at the request of Hermann Goering. Its purpose was to discuss the logistics and particulars of the “final solution to the Jewish problem.” Critical decisions about the extermination of European and Russian Jews had already been made. At Wannsee, the participants were to make sure that they understood their own responsibilities and the larger chain of command.

Working from minutes taken at the meeting and the memories of Adolf Eichmann, writer Paul Mommertz and director Heinz Schirk re-create the event in roughly real time. Both the film and the meeting last about 90 minutes. The “banality of evil” has never been so illustrated with such quiet horror. With minor changes in costume and wording, the film could be about a board of supervisors discussing the conclusion of a particularly complex zoning issue. It concerns all of their constituents, so everyone has an opinion and a certain amount of turf to protect. Beyond that, the deal is done. How do they make sure that it is handled smoothly?

But their subject is not zoning. It is the murder of 11 million people. Eleven million—that's the goal. Heydrich sums it up by saying, “What lies ahead is an organizational task unparalleled in history.”

Before the meeting starts, Heydrich (Dietrich Mattausch) calls aside his three most trusted assistants—Eichmann (Gerd Bockmann), Gruppenfuhrer Muller (Friedrich G. Beckhaus), and Dr. Lange (Martin Luttge)—to make sure they're ready. Heydrich has three goals for the morning and he wants to make sure they are met. First, the dozen or so men in the other room must agree that he is in charge. Second, their commitment to the plan must be enthusiastic. Finally and most important, they must all feel responsible. “Shared knowledge means shared responsibility,” he says. “Shared responsibility means shared liability.” That liability has nothing to do with the morality of their plan. It refers more to procedural problems. If they can't get the right numbers of trains or trucks, for example, who takes the blame?

The meeting proceeds along those lines. They discuss revisions of Hitler's racial classifications. Who is a full Jew? A half Jew? A quarter Jew? How do they handle foreign Jews? What about mixed marriages? With each question, Heydrich, an impatient, organized man, allows a brief debate among the participants, then calls on one of his men for an opinion, and finally makes a decision. Everyone agrees with it. As Heydrich checks off points in his notebook, the brandy, coffee, and pastries flow freely. People make light, crude jokes. A barking dog outside disturbs the meeting until someone shuts it up. One man nods off. The word “elegant” is used often to describe solutions to new problems. Voices are seldom raised. Only one man is at all concerned with larger issues, and he repeatedly defends himself against the “Jew lover” label.

To most viewers, the most frightening aspect of all this is the participants' blithe acceptance of Hitler's racist ideas. Once one believes that another group is “subhuman,” the decisions to eradicate those non-people come easily. That, finally, is the horror behind The Wannsee Conference. The people who commit these atrocities are able to convince themselves that they are doing the right thing, unpleasant but necessary and, whenever possible, elegant.

Cast: Dietrich Mattausch (Reinhard Heydrich), Gerd Brockmann (Adolf Eichmann), Friedrich Beckhaus (Muller), Robert Atzorn (Hofmann), Jochen Busse (Leibrandt), Hans-Werner Bussinger (Luther), Harald Dietl (Meyer), Peter Fitz (Wilhelm Stuckart), Reinhard Glemnitz (Josef Buhler), Dieter Groest (Neumann), Martin Luttge (Dr. Rudolf Lange), Anita Mally (The Secretary), Gerd Riegauer (Schongarth); Written by: Paul Mommertz; Cinematography by: Horst Schier. Producer: Infafilm/GmbH Munich. German.. Running Time: 87 minutes. Format: VHS, Beta, LV.