History Film / Conspiracy2001

* AggressiveCategorism: Heydrich and Stuckart are on opposite ends of this trope. Stuckart maintains that the Jews are a homogeneous population and the dividing line between them and Germans must be clear. Heydrich is in favor of a much looser definition of a Jew, basically meaning anyone he and the SS considers to be worthy of killing.

->''"This is...more than war. There must be a different word for this."''

* OedipusComplex: Kritzinger relates a story to Heydrich about an old friend of Kritzinger who hated his abusive father but loved his doting mother. To the friend's surprise his mother's death didn't affect him all that much, but his father's death made him cry uncontrollably. The tragedy was that the son's hatred for his father became more important to him than his mother's love, turning him into an empty shell after the man's death.

* ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem: This is the general attitude of the SS, who wish to throw out the carefully crafted categories of the Nuremberg Laws in favor of their own determinations of who is and isn't Jewish and [[KillEmAll what to do about it]]. When Stuckart, who wrote the law, complains, they suggest that he just make new ones.

* WhamLine: When Kritzinger indignantly states that the possibility of annihilating all the Jews in Europe has been "personally denied to me by the Führer," Heydrich calmly replies "And it will continue to be." The look on Kritzinger's face shows that this is the point where he has realised, for the first time, that Hitler has lied to him, and will go on lying to anyone else who asks.

** The tagline and the narrator in the opening states that the attendees "in an hour, changed the world forever". No, they didn't. While this is a common misconception that the Final Solution was decided at Wannsee, it was in fact set in motion months earlier, and the Belzec camp in eastern General Gouvernement -- the first camp dedicated solely for killing large numbers of people and a blueprint for other death camps -- was under construction since 1 November 1941. The Holocaust was decided on and no one at Wannsee could do anything to prevent it from happening no matter what. It was merely -- which the latter part of the movie correctly shows -- to ensure various agencies would cooperate to make it run smoothly and to establish the SS as the decisive force.

** While the source material available to historians contains most of reservations voiced by the characters InUniverse, the arguments never reached the level shown in the film (there were no breaks during the session in RealLife, and according to Eichmann, Heydrich was actually pleasantly surprised by the lack of resistance on part of the others). However, the film takes the position that the historical record was doctored by Eichmann to create the illusion that everyone quickly and easily came to a consensus. Additionally, Martin Luther, whose minutes are the most direct historical source for the events at the conference, is portrayed as a shameless ass-kisser who is more than likely to have simply refused to record the defiance of the other participants.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/conspiracy_screen_shot_894.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:15 men determine the fate of an entire people over appetizers.]]

* 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. Other euphemisms are used by the participants as well, such as "sausage making" and "putting a period at the end". 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.

* ArmiesAreEvil: The paramilitary factions of Nazi Germany are a major presence at the conference. The conflict between the SS officers and the civilian officials is frequently expressed by the SS stressing absolute obedience to the 'chain of command'. Stuckart protests that they're not a nation of armies, but [[InterserviceRivalry in fact he's quite wrong]]. General Heydrich voices his belief to Major Lange, who has been carrying out ad hoc massacres in the field, that the duty of a soldier is "to be willing to do the unthinkable".

* FascistButInefficient: Stuckart argues that the system for determining who has enough 'Jewish blood' is unworkable.

Though the meeting is phrased as a discussion panel for the formulation of policy, UsefulNotes/ReinhardHeydrich quickly makes it clear that the policy has already been decided and he is there to inform everybody of their roles: namely, starting in the summer the 'unskilled' Jews currently held in Germany's eastern districts and the ''Generalgouvernement'' will be deported to extermination facilities (currently under construction) in the ''Generalgouvernement'' staffed by local police forces (under the command of the SS District Chiefs). Those who argue against this policy, either because [[EvenEvilHasStandards they feel the mass execution of all "unskilled" Jews goes too far]] or [[PragmaticVillainy because they feel the policy has been poorly thought out and will have negative consequences for Germany]], are persuaded or threatened by Heydrich into agreement in a series of private conversations during brief lulls in the meeting. The ''Generalgouvernement'', on the other hand, would like the process sped up so that it will not have to keep shouldering the burden of feeding so many Useless Mouths.

Though the meeting is phrased as a discussion panel for the formulation of policy, UsefulNotes/ReinhardHeydrich quickly makes it clear that the policy has already been decided and he is there to inform everybody of their roles: namely, starting in the summer the 'unskilled' Jews currently held in Germany's eastern districts and the ''Generalgouvernement'' will be deported to extermination facilities (currently under construction) in the ''Generalgouvernement'' staffed by local police forces (under the command of the SS District Chiefs). Those who argue against this policy, either because [[EvenEvilHasStandards they feel the mass execution of all 'unskilled' Jews goes too far]] or [[PragmaticVillainy because they feel the policy has been poorly thought out and will have negative consequences for Germany]], are persuaded or threatened by Heydrich into agreement in a series of private conversations during brief lulls in the meeting. The ''Generalgouvernement'', on the other hand, would like the process sped up so that it will not have to keep shouldering the burden of feeding so many Useless Mouths.

* GovernmentProcedural: All the main characters are government officials, and the film revolves around their proceedings, which culminates in genocide.

Starring an EnsembleCast, including Creator/KennethBranagh, Creator/ColinFirth and Creator/StanleyTucci, the film follows SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) Adolf Eichmann as he organizes the meeting itself. Represented are the Security Police (under Heydrich), Criminal Police, Regional Security Chief for the ''Generalgouvernement'', a representative of Hans Frank's ''Generalgouvernement'', Alfred Rosenberg's Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Justice, the Foreign Office, the Party Chancellory, the Reich Chancellory, the SS Race and Settlement Office, and the Luftwaffe's Four Year Plan Organisation. All have been recalled to the Berlin suburb of Wannsee from their duty stations for a conference, but very few have heard what the conference is actually meant to cover. After a round of genial introductions and conversation over appetizers, SS-Obergruppenführer (General-equivalent) UsefulNotes/ReinhardHeydrich, the conference's ranking member, arrives and explains that they are there to discuss what to do with 'The Jews'.

** In-universe, Eichmann is wrong when he says that Wannsee House was owned by a Jew - in fact, it had been owned by Friedrich Minoux, a CorruptCorporateExecutive who sold it to the Heydrich-controlled Nordhav Foundation in 1940 after being jailed for defrauding the Berlin Gasworks. The money to purchase it (ℛℳ145000000 in all) may have come from expropriated Jewish property, however.
** The tagline and the narrator in the opening states that the attendees "in an hour, changed the world forever". No, they didn't. While this is a common misconception that the Final Solution was decided at Wannsee, it was in fact set in motion months earlier, and the Belzec camp in eastern General Gouvernement - the first camp dedicated solely for killing large numbers of people and a blueprint for other death camps - was under construction since 1 November 1941. The Holocaust was decided on and no one at Wannsee could do anything to prevent it from happening no matter what. It was merely - which the latter part of the movie correctly shows - to ensure various agencies would cooperate to make it run smoothly and to establish the SS as the decisive force.

* BritishNazis: Every Nazi except Eichmann (who is played by the American Creator/StanleyTucci) has a British accent. This was deliberate - the mainly British actors kept their natural accents, as it was felt that putting on an accent would shift the focus from the evil of the protagonists to how well Creator/KennethBranagh could do "Saxony-Anhalt".

* ClassifiedInformation: Eichmann takes thorough measures to ensure there's minimal evidence of the meeting, even removing the guest book and ensuring a list of damages for broken crockery is sent to him personally. Fortunately for history one copy of the minutes was not destroyed by the person it was sent to[[labelnote:note]]It was Martin Luther, in case you're wondering - he probably wasn't able to because he was arrested by Nazis themselves.[[/labelnote]]

* GreaterScopeVillain: [[TheGhost The unseen]] UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler. It's abundantly clear the orders for Heydrich to organize the genocide ultimately come from him, and the Nazis are shown paying lip service to their dictator, but he remains a distant higher figure of the system - and it's explicitly stated that he'll never admit to having given the relevant orders in the first place.

* LetMeTellYouAStory: Kritzinger relates a story to Heydrich as a warning to what he is trying to accomplish, which Heydrich later relates in turn to Müller and Eichmann at the end. It concerns a boyhood friend of Kritzinger, who hated his [[OedipusComplex abusive father fiercely but was devoted to his loving mother]]. When his mother died some years later, the man tried to cry as her casket was lowered into the grave, but wasn’t able to. When his father died at a much older age, the man couldn't control his tears. The moral of the story is that being consumed by hatred for something will mean that once that thing is gone, the hater's life will be nothing but a hollow shell anymore. Heydrich is unimpressed - after relaying the story and the warning to Eichmann and Müller, he simply remarks that he will not miss the Jews.

* PragmaticVillainy: Many objections are raised to the impending Holocaust, but other than Kritzinger's, none of them have anything to do with moral concerns. Stuckart, in particular, is passionate about the the consequences of ignoring established laws, giving virtually unlimited power to the SS, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking creating a tidal wave of inheritance claims.]] Others point out that the loss of slave labor will exacerbate labor shortages, and that diverting soldiers, vehicles and trains from the Russian front will weaken the war effort. The closest anyone gets to pointing out the horrors of genocide are concerns that ordering soldiers to kill unarmed women and children en masse would cause 'morale problems' - and then the only solution proposed is to simply change the method of killing. Encapsulated perfectly by Doctor Meyer:

* 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 decisively (dis)proven, but most historians tend to believe the former.

** The conference as a whole: a business luncheon -- held at a palatial estate in a fancy Berlin suburb, catered with [[FoodPorn mouth-wateringly depicted]] food and drink - convened by some of the most evil men in history for the purpose of planning mass murder on a horrifically unprecedented scale.

''Stuckart:''' [[DeadpanSnarker He enjoyed it so much he went mad]].\\

-->'''Klopfer''': How many lawyers are in this room? Raise your hand.
--> ''(About half those present raise their hands, including Klopfer)''
-->'''Klopfer''': Oh, Jesus Christ, [[EvilLawyerJoke it's worse than I thought]].

-->'''Roland Freisler''': ''[on Heydrich]'' He will make his entrance.

-->'''Müller''': Perhaps the judge has a special love for them?
-->'''Klopfer''': Yes, yes, a special love for them...
-->'''Stuckart''': For who? For Jews? [[SarcasmMode Wonderful, you don't have my credentials]]. Forgive me, from your uniform I can infer you're shallow, ignorant and naive about the Jews. Your line and what the party rants on about, how inferior they are, some sub-species, and I keep saying how wrong that is! They are sublimely clever. And they are intelligent as well. My indictments to that race are stronger and heavier because they are real, not your uneducated ideology. They are arrogant, and self-obsessed, and calculating, and reject the Christ and I will NOT have them pollute German blood!

-->'''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.

-->'''Heydrich''': Control yourself.

-->'''Freisler''': The Jews go in red and come out pink, now that is progress! ''([[GigglingVillain He and Schöngarth crack up laughing]])''

-->'''Heydrich:''' Sitting at that table I will ask for your agreement on what is proposed.
-->'''Kritzinger:''' And I must answer now.
-->'''Heydrich:''' Oh, you will answer now or you will answer...later.

-->'''Eichmann:''' (To switchboard operator) This meeting is not taking place. You are to take no calls for anyone at this meeting. Anyone. Unless the Führer calls - ''and he won't.''

-->'''Kritzinger:''' That we have undertaken to systematically annihilate all the Jews in Europe? No, no, no...that possibility has personally been denied to me by the [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler Führer]]!
-->'''Heydrich:''' And it will continue to be.

--> "If your method of disposing all the Jews diverts military units, and rolling stock from the Eastern Front, then it is a stupid choice. I'm not arguing priority, but method and expediency."

-->'''Stuckart''': The laws of the Reich-
-->'''Klopfer''': We make the laws we need, why am I telling you this?

-->'''Heydrich''': We will not sterilise every Jew and wait for them to die. We will not sterilise every Jew and ''then'' exterminate the race. That's farcical. Dead men don't hump, dead women don't get pregnant. Death is the most reliable form of sterilisation, put it that way.

--> '''Neumann''': Neumann, Director, Office of the Four Year Plan.
--> '''Luther''': Neumann, I introduce Dr. Klopfer, a close associate of the Brown Eminence[[labelnote:note]]Martin Bormann's nickname (a pun on "Grey Eminence", as the right-hand man of Cardinal Richelieu came to be known), "brown" referring to brown uniform of the Nazi Party[[/labelnote]].
-->'''Neumann:''' I'm sorry?
-->'''Klopfer:''' I represent Martin Bormann, Party Chairman...of the Thousand-Year-Plan[[labelnote:note]]A joking wordplay based on the "Thousand-Year Reich", as Nazi Germany had been informally called, and on the aforementioned RealLife Four Year Plan" (aimed at armament of Germany for the war and due to have ended in 1940 but in fact prolonged indefinitely) overseen by Hermann Göring[[/labelnote]].

-->'''Eichmann''': ''[after dealing with a phone call]'' The Major was reluctant to leave me a message-
-->'''Heydrich''': He does not appreciate you as I do.

-->'''Eichmann''': Does it tear ''your'' heart out?
-->'''Butler''': ''(smiling)'' Beautiful, sir.
-->'''Eichmann''': I have never understood the passion for Schubert's sentimental Viennese shit.
** The conference as a whole: a business luncheon - held at a palatial estate in a fancy Berlin suburb, catered with [[FoodPorn mouth-wateringly depicted]] food and drink - convened by some of the most evil men in history for the purpose of planning mass murder on a horrifically unprecedented scale.

-->'''Heydrich:''' Nietzsche advises the secret to enjoying life is to uh... live dangerously.
-->'''Stuckart:''' [[DeadpanSnarker He enjoyed it so much he went mad]].
-->'''Heydrich:''' Look at the world and tell me the pleasures of sanity.

** While the source material available to historians contains most of reservations voiced by the characters InUniverse, the arguments never reached the level shown in the film (there were no breaks during the session in RealLife, and according to Eichmann, Heydrich was actually pleasantly surprised by the lack of resistance on part of the others). However, the film takes the position that the historical record was doctored by Eichmann to create the illusion that everyone quickly and easily came to a consensus.

* BlatantLies: Heydrich is a 'font' of these.

* DirtyOldMan: Several Nazis, upon hearing about a new sterilization injection, ask where they can get it, as it would be "useful with the ladies." Luther points out that you would not need the injection, just the papers to say you had had it. Klopfer in particular lusts after the villa's maid, and later talks about "how [the Jews] love to make the beast [with two backs]."

* LetMeTellYouAStory: Kritzinger relates a story to Heydrich as a warning to what he is trying to accomplish, which Heydrich later relates in turn to Müller and Eichmann at the end. It concerns a boyhood friend of Kritzinger, who hated his [[OedipusComplex abusive father fiercely but was devoted to his loving mother]]. When his mother died some years later, the man tried to cry as her casket was lowered into the grave, but wasn’t able to. When his father died at a much older age, the man couldn't control his tears. The moral of the story is that being consumed by hatred for something will mean that once that thing is gone, the hater's life will be nothing but a hollow shell anymore.

Starring an EnsembleCast, including Creator/KennethBranagh, Creator/ColinFirth and Creator/StanleyTucci, the film follows SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) Adolf Eichmann as he organizes the meeting itself. Represented are the [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters Security Police (under Heydrich), Criminal Police, Regional Security Chief for the ''Generalgouvernement'', a representative of Hans Frank's ''Generalgouvernement'', Alfred Rosenberg's Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Justice, the Foreign Office, the Party Chancellory, the Reich Chancellory, the SS Race and Settlement Office, and the Luftwaffe's Four Year Plan Organisation]]. All have been recalled to the Berlin suburb of Wannsee from their duty stations for a conference, but very few have heard what the conference is actually meant to cover. After a round of genial introductions and conversation over appetizers, SS-Obergruppenführer (General-equivalent) UsefulNotes/ReinhardHeydrich, the conference's ranking member, arrives and explains that they are there to discuss what to do with 'The Jews'.

-->'''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.''

-->'''Heydrich''': ''Control yourself.''

* BreakingTheFourthWall: When asked to vote endorsement of the conference's proceedings (i.e. ''agreeing to kill every Jew in Europe''), Stuckart looks straight at the camera:
--> '''Stuckart''': ''[[SarcasmMode Oh yes, what can I say? My enthusiasm is boundless.]]''

* HistoricalBeautyUpdate: Varies from character to character. Some are a pretty good fit for their real life counterpart, but for instance the dashing Creator/ColinFirth plays the ugly-looking [[http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/staticpages/HolocaustScans/HiRes/1935/19350008000006 Wilhelm Stuckart]]. Inverted with Gerhard Klopfer, who was [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Bundesarchiv_Bild_119-06-44-12%2C_Gerhard_Klopfer.jpg perfectly ordinary looking]] in real life, but is played by an [[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-90BTffvk1go/UlPycHKEHfI/AAAAAAAAMt8/-xpVvk_SeaQ/s1600/10.png obese, unpleasant-looking actor]].

Not to be confused with ''Film/TheConspiracy''

* FourEyesZeroSoul:
** Dr. Alfred Meyer, the bespectacled Secretary of the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, urges the others to proceed with the genocide as quickly as possible to depopulate Eastern Europe.
** Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Martin Luther looks like a refined gentleman with his suit and glasses, but in fact he's immensely arrogant, easily cowed and submissive, and wholly supportive of the field executions of unarmed civilians.

* CorruptCorporateExecutive / HonestCorporateExecutive: Kritzinger hovers uncomfortably above both tropes. While willing to exploit Jewish slave workers, keep them in squalid ghettos, and attend a conference supposedly to better exploit them, not to mention being more or less on board with their wholesale sterilization, is STILL the most moral and sympathetic man in the room given he alone has moral qualms about their wholesale extermination.