History Film / Conspiracy2001

* DeadlyEuphemism: As befitting a film about the Holocaust, these are used frequently -- "evacuation" is the term finally agreed upon when discussing the future policy of the regime. Lange gets so pissed off by this he confronts Heydrich, [[EuphemismBuster asking if mass killings were meant by "evacuation"]]. Heydrich simply responds that they were. Infamously, this is TruthInTelevision regarding all official Nazi documents, in which direct references to the deadly nature of the FinalSolution were strictly avoided. During the conference itself, however, the participants discussed everything in very blunt terms, not at all bothering with the euphemisms, according to Eichmann's testimony.

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Whilst the real Erich Klopfer was just as evil and unpleasant as the one portrayed in the film, he was neither a glutton nor lecherous.

[[folder: Cast and Historical Personalities]]

[[/folder]]

* '''Creator/KennethBranagh''' as '''Reinhard Heydrich''': The SS Chief of Reich Security (Main Office) and Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. He has ultimate oversight over all matters relating to the Jewish question, and is the immediate subordinate to Heinrich Himmler. A ruthless and intelligent man, he spends much of the film threatening, flattering and cajoling to bring the ministries into line. He was killed by British-trained Czech commandos with an anti-tank grenade which destroyed his car in 1942.
* '''Creator/StanleyTucci''' as '''Adolf Eichmann''': Heydrich's "special expert" (directly subordinate to Müller, but in practice Heydrich tended to work with Eichmann over his head) and head of the SS Office for Jewish Affairs, Eichmann is the man tasked with arranging the meeting, and the operations which arise from it. Eichmann takes the role of a dispassionate observer, frequently chiming in on Heydrich's side, and generally as a man with no purpose beyond ideology. He later became known as the "architect of the Holocaust". After the war, he fled to Argentina, where he was kidnapped by Mossad and taken to Israel, where he became the only man ever put to death by that country.
* '''Creator/ColinFirth''' as '''Wilhelm Stuckart''': State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of the Interior under Wilhelm Frick, Stuckart was author of the Nuremberg Laws, which codified the government's anti-semitic stance. Argues for avoiding distress to German couples and prefers the sterilization and "natural extinction" of Jews to Heydrich's policy of extermination. He survived the war, was released from prison in 1949 and died in a car accident (believed by some to have been Mossad-induced) in 1953.
* '''Ian [=McNeice=]''' as '''Gerhard Klopfer''': A fat, loud, arrogant and rude member of the Nazi Party, he, as he constantly reminds everyone, speaks for Martin Bormann, the party chancellor. He was released after the war due to lack of evidence, becoming a tax advisor in Ulm. He died in 1987, making him the last surviving attendee of the conference.
* '''Kevin [=McNally=]''' as '''Martin Luther''': Undersecretary at the Nazi Foreign Office. Violently anti-semitic, he speaks for Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. After a failed attempt to usurp his boss, Joachim von Ribbentrop, he was sent to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, and died of a heart attack shortly after its liberation by the Red Army in 1945.
* '''David Threlfall''' as '''Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger''', the Deputy Head of the Reich Chancellery under Hans Lammers. Kritzinger shares Stuckart's opposition to outright extermination, and is the only participants who come close to making a moral objection. He attempted to resign after the Conference, but this was refused on unknown grounds. After the war, he declared himself ashamed of what he had done, and was released from Allied custody. He died in 1947.
* '''Ewan Stewart''' as '''Georg Leibbrant''': Part of the occupying administration for the Eastern Territories, Leibbrant is concerned for the situation the Eastern territories and for the connection between Communism and Judaism. After the war, he was interned, but released without trial in 1950. He emigrated to the USA that year, but later returned to Germany, dying in 1982 in Bonn.
* '''Brian Pettifer''' as '''Alfred Meyer''': A bespectacled, shrewish man, Meyer represents Alfred Rosenberg's Reich Ministry for the occupied Eastern Territories. He does not care what is done about the Jews, as long as it is done ''fast'' due to the challenge of keeping the ghettos pacified and free of disease (which he fears may spread to the ''Volksdeutsch''). He committed suicide in 1945 when it became apparent that Germany was about to lose the war.
* '''Nicholas Woodeson''' as '''Otto Hofmann''': Head of the SS Race and Settlement Office, it is his authority that is most directly usurped by Heydrich. After the war, he was jailed for 6 years (from a 25 year sentence) for war crimes. He became a clerk in Bad Mergentheim, where he died in 1982.
* '''Jonathon Coy''' as '''Erich Neumann''': Director of the Office of the Four Year Plan, Neumann is subordinate to Hermann Göring. His only concern whatsoever seemed to be severe shortage of labor force, hence his appeals to spare Jews who were working on vital industrial objects. He was interned by the Allies in 1945, but released in 1948 on the grounds of poor health. He died in 1951.
* '''Brendan Coyle''' as '''Heinrich Müller''': Chief of the Gestapo and as such immediate subordinate to Reinhard Heydrich and a boss of Adolf Eichmann. He walked out of the Führerbunker on May 1, 1945 and was never seen again, dead or alive.
* '''Ben Daniels''' as '''Dr. Josef Bühler''': State Secretary of Hans Frank's ''Generalgouvernement'' (of Poland). He testified against Hans Frank during the Nürnberg trials and was later extradited to Poland, tried, and hanged in 1948.
* '''Barnaby Kay''' as '''Rudolf Lange''': The SS Officer in charge of SD forces in Latvia. Under his command, ''Einsatzgruppe A'' is believed to have exterminated a quarter of a million Jews. He was last seen in Poznan in 1945, and it is believed he was either killed in action or committed suicide.
* '''Owen Teale''' as '''Roland Freisler''': State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice. Does not say much, but his preoccupation with Communism frequently figures into the conversation. Soon after the conference, he became Presiding Judge of the People's Court - the highest court dealing with political crimes, and brought some really ill fame upon himself when he sentenced to death dozens of people involved in the July 20, 1944 coup against Hitler. He was eventually killed in a USAF bombing raid in 1945, which just barely prevented him from giving out yet another death sentence. The man whose life was thus miraculously saved, Fabian von Schlabrendorff, later became one of Germany's top judges.
* '''Pete Sullivan''' as '''Karl Eberhard Schöngarth''': A young, arrogant and careerist SD Officer assigned to the ''Generalgouvernement''. He was captured by the Allies, charged with the murder of a downed Allied airman and hanged by the British in 1946.

* AntiVillain:
** Dr. Kritzinger is the only Nazi official present at the conference who [[EvenEvilHasStandards feels that the wholesale extermination of the Jews is wrong]]. He feels legitimately betrayed when he figures out that he has been kept in the dark with false promises that they would be spared by the regime. Heydrich deconstructs this for Kritzinger by noting that he's only barely better than the rest of them because he never had any problems with terrorizing, enslaving and sterilizing the Jewish populations in Europe so long as they weren't immediately being killed.
** Stuckart is a [[DownplayedTrope downplayed example]]. He does object to the Holocaust and brutality of his companions, but not on moral grounds. Indeed, he's an unapologetic anti-Semite. He insteads object to it because the plan involves arbitrary violations of the Nuremburg Laws (co-written by himself), which cannot be accepted by any means, and suggests sterilization as a more "lawful" approach. He also thinks the approach of mass extermination will generate global outrage, whereas a legal method of sterilization will fly below the radar.
* ArgentinaIsNaziland: Eichmann flees to Argentina after the war before he is captured by the Israeli Mossad and tried and executed for his crimes.

* AssInAmbassador: Martin Luther is the Undersecretary of the Foreign Ministry, representing Joachim von Ribbentrop at the conference. He's almost as obnoxious as Klopfer, participates in a bunch of lurid jokes about forced sterilization and proudly declares that he would be willing to sign up for Major Lange's death squad if they needed someone to shoot women and children.

* BerserkButton: Eichmann is incredibly angry when the SS drivers are found having a snowball fight outside, especially when one of them tries to excuse himself by saying "it just happened". Eichmann actually strikes the man across the face and insists that nothing ''ever'' "just happens" when they are in uniform, and threatens to have them [[ReassignedToAntarctica sent to the Russian front]].
** Stuckart loses his composure completly when Klopfer accuses him of being sympathetic to the Jews, going on a loud angry rant on how he sees them as a real threat instead of a pest problem like most Nazis.
* BigBad: Reinhard Heydrich. He's the most high-ranking and powerful Nazi in the film, and directs every step of the Holocaust and the conference.

* CaptainObvious: "Hofmann, SS Race and Settlement Main Office, we deal with matters of race and settlement."

* DeadpanSnarker: Stuckart, who has been consistently ignored and undermined throughout the entire meeting, when asked on his final opinion/approval/collaboration, simply says, with a completely straight face, that his enthusiasm is boundless.

* TheDragon: Technically speaking, Heydrich is this to BigBad Heinrich Himmler (who is, in turn, TheDragon to GreaterScopeVillain UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler). For the purposes of the film, however, Heydrich is pretty much BigBad on his own.

* DudeWheresMyRespect:
** Neumann works directly under Göring, Hitler's NumberTwo, and is in charge of economic policy for the whole country. In any sane government, he would be one of the most important people in the room. In the Wannsee Conference, he is mocked and generally ignored by everyone. Likely [[JustifiedTrope justified]] by the backdrop of the film: Göring is engaged in a power struggle with the Nazi Party and the SS, the latter two of which make up the majority of the conference. This also reflects a curious TruthInTelevision, in that much of the high-levels of Nazi government (including Hitler) weren't very interested in and in fact disdained economic management except as a means of fueling their military ambitions, to the point that immediately before the war Germany was in real danger of complete economic collapse.[[note]]A reason for this is that the long-term plan was that the Reich would plunder the countries it occupied, to pay for the cost of invading and occupying them in the first place. The idea was that the war would pay for itself. When Germany began to lose occupied territory this stopped being the case, but it was too late, at that point, to stop trying to win the war; the financial reckoning was simply pushed back in the waning hope of eventual victory.[[/note]]
** Klopfer is very clearly under the impression that he is the most important man at the conference, and behaves as such, to everyone else's annoyance. Played with in that while the other attendees do respect his position, they regard Klopfer as -- in Heydrich's words -- as a "strutting, imbecilic, porcine prick."

* EstablishingCharacterMoment:
** From the very moment that he swaggers into the mansion (cheerfully boasting that he plans to acquire it after the war), you know what Heydrich is: A classic [[TheSociopath sociopath]], to whom mass murder means no more than buying a house. Also of note - Heydrich is unique in not responding to the "heil Hitler" greeting in kind, a hint at his lack of actual loyalty. Also, the very first scene of the movie is him flying into Wannsee in his plane, capturing his narcissism and flair for the dramatic. It also says something that Eichmann, who has already been established as ruthless in his own right (see below) and has been simply a polite host to the other attendees, displays absolute deference to Heydrich from the moment he walks in.
** Eichmann has one when he forces the terrified waiter who broke the plates to pay for the damage, then asking the butler if they have enough. Meticulous and terrifying.
** Lange has one the second he steps out his car: "No silence in Latvia - no silence like this..."
** Stuckart and Kritzinger get one with their first conversation together. They believe in the supremacy of law and detest the SS for disregarding all of it to get more power by heading a genocide.
** Kritzinger has another when he refuses to participate in the rumor-mongering about the situation in Moscow, stating bluntly that the German forces are stalled for the winter.
-->'''Kritzinger''': ''It is time to face reality.''
** "N-Neumann, Office of the Four Year Plan, so good to see you..."
** Klopfer barging into the mansion like a pompous buffoon, demanding to see Eichmann so he can explain why his colleagues had to momentarily miss his presence, then guzzling sausages and belittling Neumann in very rude terms.
** Luther's first act on reaching the conference is to track down Eichmann (all but ignoring the other attendees, who are making small talk) and hand him a "memorandum of recommendations", with a second copy for Heydrich. Eichmann is visibly annoyed, but politely brushes him off.
** Double Subverted with Alfred Meyer. He is introduced laughing and joking with the others, which is the last time he so much as cracks a smile. His actual moment comes when the meeting actually starts, cutting off his subordinate's introduction to curtly introduce himself and having to be reminded by Stuckart to actually give his name.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: Some are stated outright, but a lot are subtly hinted at.
** Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger epitomizes this. Despite being (as Heydrich points out) willing to go along with the persecution, enslavement, and even mass sterilisation of the Jews, it becomes clear from the beginning of the conference that he is the only one there with a moral issue with the planned "elimination" of the Jews, and when it becomes clear his colleagues mean to flat out murder 12 million Jews his utter horror and shame at what he is a part of are obvious and he seems to come the closest of any man present to actually say that this is morally wrong. It's noted in the epilogue that of all the attendees, he is the only person to express remorse at having been complicit in the Holocaust. In RealLife Kritzinger tried to resign shortly after the conference, although historians are conflicted on whether it was because he truly felt the Operation Reinhard was morally wrong or if the timing was just a coincidence. Be that as it may, his resignation was not accepted and he remained in his position until the very end of the war.
** Dr. Stuckart offers a different style of standard. Throughout the film he is the most vocal and aggressive opponent of the genocide, but he claims it is because the proposed plans are haphazard and unworkable and opposed to the laws of Germany. He himself launches into an anti-Semitic diatribe explaining the flaws of the Jews, but then continues to protest their extermination.
** While not having any moral objection or qualm about the planned genocide, and generally acting like the biggest and most disgusting scumbag in a room full of supremely evil nazis, even Klopfer is shocked for a moment over just how many Jews will be murdered every day as the plans progress. He stops chewing his food and freezes completely motionless.
** Lange is a ruthless officer currently involved in the genocide, but he finds shooting and disposing of Jewish noncombatants (families and children mainly) to be [[ShellShockedVeteran increasingly unsettling]]. He takes personal offense when Heydrich keeps insisting on euphemisms for the killings, as it does not reflect what he has been doing in the field.
** Eichmann, despite being the biggest supporter of the genocide after Heydrich, becomes uncomfortable when describing the extermination process used in the gas chambers. Heydrich later relates that Eichmann fainted when he saw the results first-hand, which Eichmann quickly denies.
** Josef Bühler points out to the ignorant Luther that it is often distressing for their soldiers, who have some semblance of honor, to shoot unarmed women and children in mass slaughters. His tone seems to indicate he agrees with them.
** Otto Hofmann is visibly sickened when he learns the details of the gas chambers and has to excuse himself from the table to go to the bathroom. He at first tries to [[SandInMyEyes blame it on mixing alcohol at lunch, and then on a bad cigar]].
** While Neumann’s arguements against exterminating laborers could be seen as PragmaticVillainy he is also seen agreeing with Stuckart that sterilization is preferable to mass murder.

* EvilGloating: Schöngarth gives a contemptuous wink to Bühler and Meyer when they confront him about undermining them.

* FatBastard: Klopfer, overweight and vile. (The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Klopfer real Klopfer]] wasn't fat at all.)
* FauxAffablyEvil: Heydrich knows how to switch on the charm and barely raises his voice throughout the movie. It quickly becomes clear that that's largely because he doesn't have to.

* FreudianSlip: Although Stuckart claims his position isn't based on "pride of authorship", he at one point refers to the Nuremberg Laws as "my" before [[VerbalBackspace correcting himself]] to "the".

* HangingJudge: Roland Freisler of Ministry of Justice. While technically not a judge at the time of the conference (a few months later he was appointed President of the People's Court - the de facto highest court position in Nazi Germany), he is malicious, bloody-minded, and openly contemptuous of the concept of rule of law. In real life, he was at least as vile as he is played here.
* HateSink: Dr. Gerhard Klopfer, who stands out as the most detestable character in an entire film filled with Nazis. He and his colleagues are all genocidal imperialists, but most of them are at least pragmatic, coldly efficient, or not ''completely'' unsympathetic (Kritzinger and Lange). Klopfer tops them all by being morbidly obese, gluttonous, ugly, rude, an open pervert, even more simple-mindedly racist than the others, and cowardly (he makes jokes about Heydrich's possible Jewish ancestry behind his back but dares not to say it to his face when dared to do so by Müller).
* HiddenDepths: Neumann is a twitchy, nervous guy without the assertiveness to be taken seriously by the other participants, but he also is intelligent in his own areas of expertise. When the discussions actually come around to matters under his control he speaks a lot more clearly and forcefully, even interrupting other people, than he does in other conversations.

* HistoricalVillainDowngrade:
** Stuckart may or may not have pushed for sterilization as a humanitarian alternative to the ''Endloesung''. The film plays with this by giving him, as part of his protestations against extermination, a virulent anti-Semitic rant, and his protests are clearly based on legalistic grounds more than any kind of moral objection to mass murder. One gets the impression he'd be quite happy for the extermination process to occur so long as they were operating according to his Nuremberg Laws.
** Lange was an unrepentant Nazi and there is no indication that he felt anything other than joy at shooting dead thousands of Jews. The film version is a ShellShockedVeteran, although this is used in order to highlight the RealLife problems the Nazis had with mass shootings (that they turned men into "psychopaths or neurotics.")
** Kritzinger did testify to being ashamed of the actions of the Nazis during the Nuremberg trials, but there's no indication in history that he was as strongly opposed to the Final Solution as he is in the film. The film also glosses over the fact that he had been a Nazi since the 1930s, and had faithfully executed the government's antisemitic policies up to that point. Though it is at least nodded at; in their private conversation, Heydrich notes the hypocrisy in Kritzinger supporting every mistreatment of the Jews up to, but not including, actually killing them.

* {{Jerkass}}: One of the things that makes Dr. Klopfer a HateSink in addition to an evil Nazi is that he's obnoxious and rude even to his fellow Nazis.
* JusticeByOtherLegalMeans: Schongarth is never punished for his role in the holocaust but does get hanged for murdering a POW.

* LaserGuidedKarma:
** Heydrich is the most evil Nazi in the film and the biggest instigator of the genocide, and also the first to die after the conference. Within several months he is assassinated by Czech operatives sent by the British, before he even sees the culmination of his plan. After his death it was named Operation Reinhard in his honour.
** Catches up with Adolf Eichmann in the epilogue text. Abducted from Argentina by the Israeli Mossad and flown to face trial in Jerusalem, Adolf Eichmann became the only man ever executed by the state of Israel.
** Roland Freisler, who became a notoriously bloodthirsty HangingJudge after the conference, was eventually killed during an Allied bombing raid on his way to the bomb shelter. Even more satisfying, the man who was being on trial at that time, ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_von_Schlabrendorff Fabian von Schlabrendorff]]), was a German Resistance member who would later take Freisler's job as one of Germany's top judges.
** Martin Luther would himself ultimately get sent to a concentration camp. He survived long enough to be freed by the Red Army when they liberated the camp, only to immediately die of heart failure.
** Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart, author of the vehmently anti-semitic Nuremberg Laws, died in 1953 in a car accident that is strongly believed to have been a Mossad-arranged assassination.
** Josef Bühler was handed over to the Poles after the war and hanged.
** Erich Neumann was executed for war crimes.
** Karl Schöngarth was convicted of murdering a captured airman and executed.
** Heinrich Müller disappeared at the end of the war and was last seen strongly implying he was about to kill himself rather than be captured by the Soviets.
** Rudolf Lange was last seen in Poznań shortly before it fell to the Russians. It's assumed he either shot himself or was killed in action.

* ALighterShadeOfBlack:
** [[AntiVillain Kritzinger]], while still a proud servant of the Führer who's glad to oppress the Jewish people, is the only one appalled by the concept of complete extermination.
** Stuckart also opposes their genocide, though his objection is [[PragmaticVillainy more on legal grounds than moral ones]]. His own solution to the Jewish "problem" involves sterilizing them all and letting them expire within a generation, which is still unbelievably abhorrent, but marginally less bad than forcing them into gas chambers.

* ManipulativeBastard: Reynhard Heydrich. He is very good at putting on an outer face of pleasantness and respect, but it gradually becomes apparent that the conference is not a discussion of whether or not to enact the mass killing of Jews, but a briefing in which the various departments are being told what their role in the already decided-on genocide will be. At most, Heydrich gives them some points of clarification, but otherwise, he isn't really interested in anything they have to say, though he maintains the pretense of this for a while. Heydrich verbally dominates the entire conference. ''Frequently'', when one of the other men at the table attempt to interject a question, he earnestly and politely brushes it off by saying that he will take questions in a moment, but hasn't quite finished what he's saying. After a couple of rounds of this, it becomes clear that Heydrich is just saying this to shut people up, and he has no intention of ever getting around to their questions. All of this is said with a cheerful smile. This works with most of them, but when Stuckart adamantly insists that he doesn't like being cut out of the loop on important matters like this, Heydrich lets the mask drop for a moment, and bluntly make the offhand threat that it would be a shame if the bullies in the SS heard what an obstructionist he's being.

* MinionWithAnFInEvil: Deconstructed to Kritzinger by Heydrich, a man with an A in evil.
-->'''Heydrich''': Well then, this is the moment to be...practical, until such time as Germany can afford your philosophy, which is what? Hound them, impoverish them, exploit them, imprison them, just do not ''kill'' them, and you are God's noblest of men. I find that, uh, truly remarkable.

* MyMasterRightOrWrong: Major Lange is briefly mentored by General Heydrich after Lange notes how disturbed he is by all the massacres in the East. When Heydrich later asks Lange for his opinion at the table, he simply submits to the chain of command and states that he has no other gods before it.

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: The only reason we have any idea what happened during the conference is because Martin Luther neglected to destroy his notes as instructed.

* ObliviouslyEvil: Otto Hofmann somehow manages to get through the entire meeting without realizing that he's just receiving marching orders for a genocide. At the end, he still seems to think Heydrich's orders are merely suggestions, and that his opinions regarding sterilization will still be considered.

* OnlySaneMan: An incredibly depressing one comes in the form of Dr. Kritzinger. He tries to make a moral stand while everyone else is concerned with bureaucracy or power-play, but he's shot down and eventually goes along with it after realizing the futility of objecting. It is summed up by this exchange at the end of the film:
-->'''Kritzinger:''' It is night in Moscow already. Soon it will be dark here. Do you think any of us will live to see the daytime?

* OohMeAccentsSlipping: David Threlfall as Dr. Kritzinger is one of the few actors who attempts a German accent. However, when he expresses his outrage at being lied to by Hitler, his natural British accent comes through rather clearly.
* PetTheDog:
** When Eichmann's description of the gas chambers makes Hofmann sick to his stomach, Major Lange steps in to comfort him and even offers the other guests the excuse of a bad cigar. It's hardly surprising that Lange, who had been assigned to slaughter civilians by the thousand, would sympathize with not having the stomach for that sort of thing.
** Heydrich, of all people, stops his subordinate Müller from taunting Kritzinger further.
--->'''Heydrich:''' Leave him. His Führer lied to him. I think he got the message.

* ProfessionalButtKisser:
** Martin Luther fits the mold perfectly, shamelessly kissing up to Eichmann and Heydrich. It's telling that he can't remember Neumann's name or job title, but can remember that he works under Reichmarshall Göring.
** Neumann is hell-bent on ingratiating himself to all of the other guests, particularly Dr. Stuckart.
-->'''Stuckart:''' How are you, Neumann?
-->'''Neumann:''' Well, always surprised and flattered, Dr Stuckart, that you recognize me.
-->'''Stuckart:''' And [[DeadpanSnarker I am always thanking you for saying so]].

* PsychopathicManchild: Schöngarth seems to be a rather chillingly realistic example of this; he's boisterous and petty, but at the same time completely detached from any consequences of his actions and childish in his cruelty and sadism, enthusiastically imagining and clapping at the idea of genocide. Neatly encapsulated when Heydrich forces them to stop smoking cigars, Schöngarth, in the midst of cutting a new one, actually goes "awwww".

* SandInMyEyes: When they finally get past the preamble of the meeting and Eichmann begins describing, in detail, the method of mass gas extermination, Otto Hoffmann becomes visibly sickened and excuses himself to rush to the bathroom. He at first claims it is because he mixed wine and whiskey while eating, and then that it was probably a bad cigar.

* ShellShockedVeteran: Of a sort; of the participants at the conference, Lange is the only one who is currently directly involved in the extermination of the Jews and, while he's certainly pretty enthusiastic about the killings, is clearly a bit haunted by his experiences. This also leads him to hold a certain degree of contempt for the bureaucrats and euphemistic language he's surrounded by.

* TheSocialDarwinist: When Heydrich finishes the conference, he echoes the Nazi views on evolution as he gloats that the genocide of the Jews will "advance the human race to greater purity in a space of time so short Charles Darwin will be astonished".
* TheSociopath:
** Heydrich shows all of the classic traits: Superficial charm, glibness, personal manipulation, compulsive recklessness ("the secret to enjoying life is to live dangerously," he says), and an utter lack of empathy. Kenneth Branagh came away from the role convinced that inside the man, there was no principle, no passion, and no emotion except for a desire to dominate others. He went so far as to say that Heydrich didn't even seem especially anti-Semitic: the man simply lusted after power, and the fact that said power meant the murders of six million Jews was incidental.
** Schöngarth also qualifies, in a different way. Like Heydrich, he enjoys bullying others and has no apparent empathy. However, Heydrich's bullying relies on subtle threats and is coated in impeccable manners, while Schöngarth is more blunt, uses his imposing stature to intimidate others, and is openly rude and mocking to anyone he considers beneath him. Heydrich is a sociopath who masks his true nature, which Schöngarth either cannot or does not bother to do.
* SociopathicSoldier: Deconstructed. SS Major Lange is the closest you could get to this, as he's leading one of a number of huge death squads through the occupied Soviet Union shooting unarmed civilians en masse and encouraging racist locals to kill Jews in mobs. However, [[ShellShockedVeteran he and his men are becoming increasingly disturbed]] by the sheer level of inhumanity they're supposed to inhabit. Heydrich introduces the gas chambers to make the murders easier to carry out for the perpetrators.

* StraightEdgeEvil:
** Nazi official Eichmann is a very composed man who doesn't indulge in the food or cigars prepared for the attendees at the villa and is reluctant to drink on duty until Heydrich orders him to.
** Heydrich himself is obviously irritated by the lecherousness of the other attendees when they talk about sterilization and does not touch the drink or the cigars until the conference is finished.

* VillainousGlutton: Dr. Klopfer is an obnoxious, obese Nazi who indulges himself with the food and other niceties prepared for the attendees in the villa. He's still mowing down leftovers when the other Nazis have already departed.

* HiddenDepths: Neumann really is a twitchy, nervous guy without the assertiveness to be taken seriously by the other participants, it is not an act or ploy, but he also is intelligent in his own areas of expertise. When the discussions actually come around to matters under his control he speaks a lot more clearly and forcefully, even interrupting other people, than he does in other conversations.

* ObfuscatingStupidity: [[PlayingWithATrope A variation]]. Neumann really is a twitchy, nervous guy without the assertiveness to be taken seriously by the other participants, it is not an act or ploy, but he also is intelligent in his own areas of expertise. When the discussions actually come around to matters under his control he speaks a lot more clearly and forcefully, even interrupting other people, than he does in other conversations.

* ALighterShadeOfBlack: [[AntiVillain Kritzinger]], while still a proud servant of the Führer who's glad to oppress the Jewish people, is the only one appalled by the concept of complete extermination.

* BreakingTheFourthWall: When asked to vote endorsement of the conference's proceedings (i.e. ''agreeing to kill every Jew in Europe''), Colin Firth's character looks straight at the camera:

* MinionWithAnFInEvil: Deconstructed by Heydrich to Kritzinger.

* ForeignRemake: An English-language remake of the German film ''Die Wannseekonferenz'' which covered the same event. Aside from casting several actors with more international credentials, the difference between the two is most noticeable in the RuleOfDrama: in the German version, the Nazis are pretty much all on the same page about the Holocaust and are even jovial with each other, whereas in the English version there is more vehement disagreement and infighting.

''Conspiracy'' is a 2001 Creator/{{HBO}} / [[Creator/TheBBC BBC]] TV film that [[{{Docudrama}} dramatizes the story of the 1942 Wannsee Conference]], one of several meetings of German civil and party officials which authorised the Security Police department of the SS to organize [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust the deportation of Jews from and to anywhere it wished as part of what would ultimately be called "Operation Reinhard"]] [[note]] The benefits for the Security Police department were three-fold. Firstly, the removal of all Jews from certain districts would endear them to the district leaders. Secondly, district leaders in the (now-overburdened) districts the Jews were deported to would then be forced to choose between risking rebellion (through insufficient rations), running at a budgetary loss (through sufficient rations), or direct murder. Thirdly, since the district leaders in the destination-districts would presumably murder the Jews, the Security Police could rightfully claim that it had played a leading role in eliminating those Jews (and so beat the District Security Chiefs ([=HSSPFs=]), Order Police, and Special Task Forces (''Einsatzgruppen'') who had hitherto played the largest roles in eliminating Jews) [[/note]] It is an English-language adaptation of ''DieWannseekonferenz'', a German film that tackled the same subject matter; both films are shot in RealTime and used the only surviving copy of the minutes of the meeting, which was found in the papers of Undersecretary Martin Luther, as the basis for their scripts.

''Conspiracy'' is a 2001 Creator/{{HBO}} / [[Creator/TheBBC BBC]] TV film that [[{{Docudrama}} dramatizes the story of the 1942 Wannsee Conference]], one of several meetings of German civil and party officials which authorised the Security Police department of the SS to organize [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust the deportation of Jews from and to anywhere it wished as part of what would ultimately be called "Operation Reinhard"]] [[note]] The benefits for the Security Police department were three-fold. Firstly, the removal of all Jews from certain districts would endear them to the district leaders. Secondly, district leaders in the (now-overburdened) districts the Jews were deported to would then be forced to choose between risking rebellion (through insufficient rations), running at a budgetary loss (through sufficient rations), or direct murder. Thirdly, since the district leaders in the destination-districts would presumably murder the Jews, the Security Police could rightfully claim that it had played a leading role in eliminating those Jews (and so beat the District Security Chiefs ([=HSSPFs=]), Order Police, and Special Task Forces (''Einsatzgruppen'') who had hitherto played the largest roles in eliminating Jews) [[/note]] It is an English-language adaptation of ''Die Wannseekonferenz'', a German film that tackled the same subject matter; both films are shot in RealTime and used the only surviving copy of the minutes of the meeting, which was found in the papers of Undersecretary Martin Luther, as the basis for their scripts.

* LetsSeeYouDoBetter: Comes up when [[AssInAmbassador Luther]] criticizes Lange's soldiers for not being able to stomach murdering, one-by-one, literal kilotons of Jews. Lange snaps back in true military fashion to ask if Luther would like to enlist himself. Backfires when Luther instantly agrees. Heydrich irritably shut the whole thing down: shooting that many people in small batches is a farcical waste of resources.

->''"This is...more than war. There must be a different word [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust for this]]."''
-->-- '''Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger'''

-->'''Kritzinger:''' This is more than war. Must be a different word for this.\\

* ForeignRemake: An English-language remake of the German film ''Die Wannseekonferenz'' which covered the same event. Aside from casting several actors with more international credentials, the difference between the two is most noticeable in the RuleOfDrama: in the German version, the Nazis are pretty much all on the same page about the Holocaust, whereas in the English version there is more open disagreement and infighting.

''Conspiracy'' is a 2001 Creator/{{HBO}} / [[Creator/TheBBC BBC]] TV film that [[{{Docudrama}} dramatizes the story of the 1942 Wannsee Conference]], one of several meetings of German civil and party officials which authorised the Security Police department of the SS to organize [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust the deportation of Jews from and to anywhere it wished as part of what would ultimately be called "Operation Reinhard"]] [[note]] The benefits for the Security Police department were three-fold. Firstly, the removal of all Jews from certain districts would endear them to the district leaders. Secondly, district leaders in the (now-overburdened) districts the Jews were deported to would then be forced to choose between risking rebellion (through insufficient rations), running at a budgetary loss (through sufficient rations), or direct euthanasia. Thirdly, since the district leaders in the destination-districts would presumably euthanize the Jews, the Security Police could rightfully claim that it had played a leading role in eliminating those Jews (and so beat the District Security Chiefs ([=HSSPFs=]), Order Police, and Special Task Forces (''Einsatzgruppen'') who had hitherto played the largest roles in eliminating Jews) [[/note]] It is an English-language adaptation of ''Die Wannseekonferenz'', a German film that tackled the same subject matter; both films are shot in RealTime and used the only surviving copy of the minutes of the meeting, which was found in the papers of Undersecretary Martin Luther, as the basis for their scripts.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: In the WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue the film observes Heinrich Müller's fate is unknown. This is true: Müller is the highest-ranking Nazi whose exact fate is more or less unknown, having just vanished from Hitler's bunker in 1945 after making a comment that he would not be taken prisoner by the Soviets (which implies either suicide or some kind of escape route). To this day his whereabouts are unclear, with the main theories being that he either committed suicide/was killed in early May 1945 and subsequently buried in a mass grave - or that he survived and was recruited by the Soviets afterwards. Neither of these is considered deciively (dis)proven, but most historians tend to believe the former.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: In the WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue the film observes Heinrich Müller's fate is unknown. This is true: Müller is the highest-ranking Nazi whose exact fate is more or less unknown, having just vanished from Hitler's bunker in 1945 after making a comment that he would not be taken prisoner by the Soviets (which implies either suicide or some kind of escape route). To this day his whereabouts are unclear, with the main theories being that he either committed suicide/was killed in early May 1945 and subsequently buried in a mass grave - or that he survived and was recruited by the Soviets afterwards. Neither of these is considered proven, but most historians tend to believe the former.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: In the WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue the film observes Heinrich Muller's fate is unknown. This is true: Muller is the highest-ranking Nazi whose fate is more or less unknown, having just vanished from Hitler's bunker in 1945 after making a comment that he would not be taken prisoner by the Soviets (which implies either suicide or some kind of escape route). To this day his whereabouts are unclear, with the main theories being that he committed suicide and was buried in a mass grave or was recruited by the Soviets, but neither has any hard evidence.

** Played straight with Heydrich: he finds a record of Music/FranzSchubert's String Quintet in C Major and comments "The adagio will tear your heart out." Later on, when Heydrich has left, Eichmann averts it: he puts the record on at the adagio and listens to it for a moment. The butler stops and listens to it too.

** Heydrich shows all of the classic traits: Superficial charm, glibness, personal manipulation, compulsive recklessness ("the secret to enjoying life is to live dangerously," he says), and an utter lack of empathy. Kenneth Branagh came away from the role convinced that inside the man, there was no principle, no passion, and no emotion except for a desire to dominate others. He went so far as to say that Heydrich didn't even seem especially anti-Semitic: the man simply lusted after power, and the fact that said power meant the murders of six million Jews was incidental. Historians generally seem to agree with this assessment.

** Heydrich shows all of the classic traits: Superficial charm, glibness, personal manipulation, compulsive recklessness ("the secret to enjoying life is to live dangerously," he says), and an utter lack of empathy. Kenneth Branagh came away from the role convinced that inside the man, there was no principle, no passion, and no emotion except for a desire to dominate others. He went so far as to say that Heydrich didn't even seem especially anti-Semitic: the man simply lusted after power, and the fact that said power meant the murders of six million Jews was incidental.

** Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger epitomizes this. Despite being (as Heydrich points out) willing to go along with the persecution, enslavement, and even mass sterilisation of the Jews, it becomes clear from the beginning of the conference that he is the only one there with a moral issue with the planned "elimination" of the Jews, and when it becomes clear his colleagues mean to flat out murder 12 million Jews his utter horror and shame at what he is a part of are obvious and he seems to come the closest of any man present to actually say that this is morally wrong. It's noted in the epilogue that of all the attendees, he is the only person to express remorse at having been complicit in the Holocaust. In RealLife Kritzinger tried to resign soon after the conference, although historians are conflicted on whether it was because he truly felt the Operation Reinhard was morally wrong or if the timing was just a coincidence. In any case, his resignation was not accepted and he remained in his position until the very end of the war.

** Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger epitomizes this. Despite being (as Heydrich points out) willing to go along with the persecution, enslavement, and even mass sterilisation of the Jews, it becomes clear from the beginning of the conference that he is the only one there with a moral issue with the planned "elimination" of the Jews, and when it becomes clear his colleagues mean to flat out murder 12 million Jews his utter horror and shame at what he is a part of are obvious and he seems to come the closest of any man present to actually say that this is morally wrong. It's noted in the epilogue that of all the attendees, he is the only person to express remorse at having been complicit in the Holocaust. In RealLife Kritzinger tried to resign immediately after the conference, although historians are conflicted on whether it was because he truly felt the Operation Reinhard was morally wrong or if the timing was just a coincidence.

* '''Kevin [=McNally=]''' as '''Martin Luther''': Undersecretary at the Nazi Foreign Office. Violently anti-semitic, he speaks for Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. After a failed attempt to usurp his boss, Von Ribbentrop, he was sent to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, and died of a heart attack shortly after its liberation by the Red Army in 1945.

-->'''Freisler''': ''The Russian is not a Communist, my friend. The Russian does not give a damn who runs things. I have lived amongst them[[labelnote:note]]Freisler became a POW in Russian Empire during WWI, in 1915, and didn't get back home until 1920, almost two years after he was released from the POW camp. He's actually reported to have himself worked for the Soviet Communist government during those two years.[[/labelnote]]. The Russian only cares he has a bottle of vodka to suck and some form of domestic animal life to fuck. Then he will happily sit in shit his whole life. That is his politics. I know those people. That is the distinction. I absolve the Jews of that.''

* EnemyCivilWar: [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]]. Müller at several points in the film interjects when other characters protest the way that the SS is dominating the situation, explaining that there must be a single guiding hand to form policy. If there are multiple objectives then the entire process can fall into shambles as they compete against one another; he likens it to an animal having two heads and a ship having two captains. He explicitly points out that having Martin Bormann and Herman Göring fight it out would be disastrous.