Conspiracy (2001 film)

Last updated

Conspiracy
Conspiracy-film.jpg
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 originUnited Kingdom
United States
Original languagesEnglish
German
Production
ProducersNick Gillott
Frank Pierson
Cinematography Stephen Goldblatt
Editor Peter Zinner
Running time96 minutes
Production companies BBC
HBO Films
Original release
Network HBO
Release19 May 2001 (2001-05-19)

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.

Contents

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 a 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 Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart, a lawyer in the Reich Ministry for the Interior, takes Stuckart 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 and ovens to incinerate the bodies.

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: asphyxiation 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 livable 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 after the Jews are exterminated, though he rejects the warning, telling Müller and Eichmann that he will not miss the Jews.

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

Additional cast members include:

Production

Background

Colin Callendar, head of HBO NYC productions, identifies two primary historical arguments underpinning the narrative. [1] He underscores the conference's role as a mechanism for consolidating Reinhard Heydrich's authority and that of the SS in executing the infamous "Final Solution." He also emphasizes the film's portrayal of a lack of a clearly defined and centralized policy preceding the Wannsee Conference. These insights reflect a functionalist interpretation of the Holocaust, highlighting the evolutionary and radicalizing nature of the genocide, often originating from lower ranks within the Nazi hierarchy. Callendar also notes the presence distinct groups of various ranking officials (and their conflict objectives) underscores the Holocaust's emergence as a result of competing interests among different governmental agencies.

In addition to Callendar, the producers had the input of three historians, including Michael Berenbaum of the United States Holocaust Museum and Andrea Axelrod as a historical advisor. Noted Holocaust historian Christopher Browning also acted as a consultant. Browning offered small critiques, including geographical mistakes, references to speeches and events that had not yet happened in January 1942 and how the German officials referred to each other. Axelrod provided extensive research and documentation (amounting to 170 citations), including verifying the amount of snowfall in Wannsee on the date of the conference. [2]

Screenplay

Pierson brought Mandel into the project initially for an unproduced script entitled Complicity. This was intended to be a companion movie detailing the failure of the Allies to help with Jewish refugees. The piece never made it to the screen, most likely as a result of the sensitive subject of culpability of Western Allies. [2]

Mandel utilized the only existing copy of the conference minutes, called the Wansee Protocols, found in 1947 in the German Foreign Office files as the basis for the script. [3] [2] During an interview discussing a later adaptation of the screenplay into a theatre production, the author noted "I had never heard of the Wansee Conference" and that Pierson told him "...it was the first thing he had encountered about the Holocaust that angered him rather than making him want to cry", he signed on to write the screenplay. [4] The script is not verbatim from conversations at the conference and most of the actual dialogue is invented. The meeting occurred over a period of 90 minutes, which is the same running time of the movie.

Filming

Kenneth Branagh, the actor portraying Heydrich in the film, reported that he found the role deeply unsettling. [5] Despite grappling with a profound aversion towards the historical figure he portrayed, Branagh is acclaimed for delivering a remarkable portrayal of the allegedly flamboyant officer. Branagh's portrayal was challenging not only by the difficulty of delivering lines but also by the absence of discernible motivations or upbringing factors explaining Heydrich's chilling readiness to perpetrate genocide on an unprecedented scale. Branagh reaffirmed a recurring theme of the film, emphasizing its commitment to historical accuracy over sensationalism or star power, underscoring the importance of authentically recounting this harrowing chapter of history.

Reception

Critical reception

Conspiracy has a 100% approval rating from 7 critic reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. [6]

In The American Historical Review, Alan E. Steinweis critically analyzes the film, offering insights from a historian's perspective. [7] Steinweis highlights instances within the film where certain scenes are identified as dramatic inventions, pointing out discrepancies between historical accuracy and cinematic portrayal. However, Steinweis underscores a common limitation in historians' critiques of films, noting their tendency to focus solely on specific fictionalized elements while overlooking broader thematic arguments and the overarching vision of the film.

Steinweis also juxtaposes Conspiracy with its 1984 German predecessor, Die Wannseekonferenz , suggesting that the earlier film may offer a more historically accurate depiction by providing a more detailed examination of the killing process. He critiques the portrayal of Reinhard Heydrich in Conspiracy while commending the depiction of Adolf Eichmann as "refreshing." Yet, Steinweis argues that a deeper analysis, often absent in historical reviews of films, would involve an exploration of the film's production history to uncover the filmmakers' intentions, historical arguments, and research methodologies underlying the film's creation.

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 [8]

An impressed Austin Film Society had a lengthy review of the film and details about its making. [9]

Awards and nominations

YearAwardCategoryNominee(s)ResultRef.
2001
 Artios Awards Best Casting for Movie of the WeekLinda LowyNominated [10]
Online Film & Television Association AwardsBest Motion Picture Made for TelevisionNominated [11]
Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture or Miniseries Stanley Tucci Nominated
Best Editing in a Motion Picture or MiniseriesNominated
Best New Titles Sequence in a Motion Picture or MiniseriesNominated
Peabody Awards HBO Films produced in association with the BBC Won [12]
Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Made for Television Movie Frank Doelger, Frank Pierson,
David M. Thompson, Peter Zinner,
and Nick Gillott		Nominated [13]
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie Kenneth Branagh Won
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie Colin Firth Nominated
Stanley TucciNominated
Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries or a Movie Frank PiersonNominated
Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries or a Movie Loring Mandel Won
Outstanding Cinematography for a Miniseries or a Movie Stephen Goldblatt Nominated
Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special Peter ZinnerNominated
Outstanding Single-Camera Sound Mixing for a Miniseries or a Movie Peter Glossop, John Hayward,
Richard Pryke, and Kevin Tayler		Nominated
Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special Christopher Ackland, Gillian Dodders, Alan Paley,
Felicity Cottrell, and Jason Swanscott		Nominated
2002
 American Film Institute Awards TV Movie or Mini-Series or the YearNominated [14]
Actor of the Year – Male – TV Movie or Mini-SeriesKenneth BranaghNominated
Directors Guild of America Awards Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television or Miniseries Frank PiersonWon [15]
Golden Globe Awards Best Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television Nominated [16]
Best Actor in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television Kenneth BranaghNominated
Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television Stanley TucciWon
Satellite Awards Best Motion Picture Made for Television Nominated [17]
Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Miniseries or a Motion Picture Made for Television Colin FirthNominated
Stanley TucciNominated
Writers Guild of America Awards Long Form – Original Loring MandelWon [18]
2003
 British Academy Television Awards Best Single Drama Won [19]
Best Actor Kenneth BranaghNominated

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ernst Kaltenbrunner</span> Austrian SS and chief of the Reich Security Main Office (1903–1946)

Ernst Kaltenbrunner was a high-ranking Austrian SS official during the Nazi era and a major perpetrator of the Holocaust. After the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942, and a brief period under Heinrich Himmler, Kaltenbrunner was the third Chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), which included the offices of Gestapo, Kripo and SD, from January 1943 until the end of World War II in Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Final Solution</span> Nazi plan for the genocide of Jews

The Final Solution or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question was a Nazi plan for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews during World War II. The "Final Solution to the Jewish question" was the official code name for the murder of all Jews within reach, which was not restricted to the European continent. This policy of deliberate and systematic genocide starting across German-occupied Europe was formulated in procedural and geopolitical terms by Nazi leadership in January 1942 at the Wannsee Conference held near Berlin, and culminated in the Holocaust, which saw the murder of 90% of Polish Jews, and two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reinhard Heydrich</span> High ranking Nazi official (1904–1942)

Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich was a high-ranking German SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wannsee Conference</span> 1942 Holocaust planning meeting

The Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior government officials of Nazi Germany and Schutzstaffel (SS) leaders, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. The purpose of the conference, called by the director of the Reich Security Main Office SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, was to ensure the co-operation of administrative leaders of various government departments in the implementation of the Final Solution to the Jewish Question, whereby most of the Jews of German-occupied Europe would be deported to occupied Poland and murdered. Conference participants included representatives from several government ministries, including state secretaries from the Foreign Office, the justice, interior, and state ministries, and representatives from the SS. In the course of the meeting, Heydrich outlined how European Jews would be rounded up and sent to extermination camps in the General Government, where they would be killed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rudolf Lange</span> Nazi German SS officer (1910–1945)

Rudolf Lange was a German SS-Standartenführer and police official during the Nazi era. After the invasion of the Soviet Union, he served in Einsatzgruppe A before becoming a commander of the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo) and Sicherheitsdienst (SD) forces in Riga, Generalbezirk Lettland. He participated in the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, at which the genocidal Final Solution to the Jewish Question was planned, and was largely responsible for implementing the murder of Latvia's Jewish population during the Holocaust. He died at the Battle of Poznań in the closing months of the Second World War in Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karl Eberhard Schöngarth</span> German Nazi SS general and war criminal (1903–1946)

Karl Eberhard Schöngarth was a German lawyer and SS-Brigadeführer in Nazi Germany. He was a war criminal who perpetrated mass murder and genocide in German-occupied Poland during the Holocaust. He participated in the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, at which the genocidal Final Solution to the Jewish Question was originally planned. After the war, Schöngarth and six others were tried for murdering an American pilot, Americo S. Galle, who was shot down over the Netherlands in November 1944. They were all found guilty. Schöngarth and four others were sentenced to death and executed in 1946.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reich Security Main Office</span> Nazi German police and intelligence organization (1939–45)

The Reich Security Main Office was an organization under Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacity as Chef der Deutschen Polizei and Reichsführer-SS, the head of the Nazi Party's Schutzstaffel (SS). The organization's stated duty was to fight all "enemies of the Reich" inside and outside the borders of Nazi Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heinrich Müller (Gestapo)</span> German police official and head of the Gestapo (1939–1945)

Heinrich Müller was a high-ranking German Schutzstaffel (SS) and police official during the Nazi era. For most of World War II in Europe, he was the chief of the Gestapo, the secret state police of Nazi Germany. Müller was central in the planning and execution of the Holocaust and attended the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, which formalised plans for deportation and genocide of all Jews in German-occupied Europe—The "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". He was known as "Gestapo Müller" to distinguish him from another SS general named Heinrich Müller.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilhelm Stuckart</span> Nazi German government official (1902–1953)

Wilhelm Stuckart was a German Nazi Party lawyer, official, and a State Secretary in the Reich Interior Ministry during the Nazi era. He was a co-author of the notorious Nuremberg Laws and a participant in the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, at which the genocidal Final Solution to the Jewish Question was planned. He also served as Reichsminister of the Interior in the short-lived Flensburg government at the end of the Second World War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger</span> German lawyer and Nazi official (1890–1947)

Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger was a German lawyer who became the State Secretary in the Reich Chancellery under Reichsminister Hans Lammers in Nazi Germany. He was Lammers' representative to the 20 January 1942 Wannsee Conference, at which the genocidal Final Solution to the Jewish Question was planned. He was arrested after the fall of the Nazi regime, incarcerated from 1945 to 1947 but released due to ill health and died without ever facing trial.

<i>Fatherland</i> (novel) 1992 novel by Robert Harris

Fatherland is a 1992 alternative history detective novel by English writer and journalist Robert Harris. Set in a world where the Axis won World War II, the story's protagonist—Xavier March—is an officer of the Kripo, the criminal police, who is investigating the murder of a Nazi government official who participated at the Wannsee Conference. A plot is thus discovered to eliminate all of those who attended the conference, to help improve German relations with the United States.

The Wannsee Conference is a 1984 West German - Austrian TV film portraying the events of the Wannsee Conference, held in Berlin in January 1942. The script is derived from the minutes of the meeting. Since no verbatim transcription of the meeting exists, the dialogue is necessarily fictionalised. The main theme of the film is the bureaucratic nature of the genocide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adolf Eichmann</span> German Nazi official and war criminal (1906–1962)

Otto Adolf Eichmann was a German-Austrian official of the Nazi Party, an officer of the Schutzstaffel (SS), and one of the major organisers of the Holocaust. He participated in the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, at which the implementation of the genocidal Final Solution to the Jewish Question was planned. Following this, he was tasked by SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich with facilitating and managing the logistics involved in the mass deportation of millions of Jews to Nazi ghettos and Nazi extermination camps across German-occupied Europe. He was captured and detained by the Allies in 1945, but escaped and eventually settled in Argentina. In May 1960, he was tracked down and apprehended by Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, and put on trial before the Supreme Court of Israel. The highly publicised Eichmann trial resulted in his conviction in Jerusalem, following which he was executed by hanging in 1962.

Leopold Itz, Edler von Mildenstein was an SS officer who is remembered as a leading supporter in the Nazi Party of some of the aims of Zionism during the 1930s.

The Stiftung Nordhav was a front organization of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) founded in 1939 by Reinhard Heydrich to obtain and manage real estate for the SS.

Dramatic portrayals of Reinhard Heydrich number among the more numerous of any Second World War figure, comparable to Adolf Hitler as well as war films depicting Erwin Rommel. Reinhard Heydrich has been portrayed in both television and film, and was one of the few high ranking Nazis to be depicted in a dramatic film while the Second World War was still ongoing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reich Security Head Office Referat IV B4</span> Sub-department of the Reich Security Main Office in Nazi Germany

Reich Security Head Office Referat IV B4, known as RSHA IV B4, was a sub-department of Germany's Reich Security Head Office and the Gestapo during the Holocaust. Led by SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann, RSHA IV B4 was responsible for "Jewish affairs and evacuation" in German-occupied Europe, and specifically for the deportation of Jews from outside Poland to concentration or extermination camps. Within Poland, the liquidation of the ghettos and transport of Jews was handled by the SS and local police departments.

Die Wannseekonferenz, international title The Conference, is a German TV docudrama, first aired January 24, 2022 by the ZDF broadcaster, about the Wannsee Conference held in Berlin-Wannsee in 1942 to organise the extermination of the Jews.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Friedrich Suhr</span> SS and Police Leader and SS-Obersturmbannführer

Friedrich Suhr was a German lawyer and SS-Obersturmbannführer. He worked in the Reich Security Main Office under Adolf Eichmann. During the Second World War, he led Einsatzkommando death squads in Ukraine. He also served as the SiPo and SD commander in occupied France and was the SS and Police Leader in Oberelsaß. After the war, he committed suicide while in Allied custody.

Ingeburg Gertrud Werlemann was a German secretary and photographer. During the Second World War, she was a secretary to Adolf Eichmann and noted down the results of the talks at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin on 20 January 1942.

References

  1. ↑ Callender, Colin. "Notes/Wannsee." December 6, 2006, Box 10, Folder 7, Loring Mandel Papers, 1942–2006, M2006-124. Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin. 1.
  2. 1 2 3 Johnson, Nicholas (December 2016). HBO and The Holocaust: Conspiracy, The Historical Film, and Public History at Wannsee (Masters of Art thesis). Indiana University.
  3. ↑ Fries, Laura (15 May 2001). "Conspiracy". Variety. Retrieved 11 June 2024.
  4. ↑ harvardgazette (13 November 2013). "Getting to the dark heart of 'Conspiracy'". Harvard Gazette. Retrieved 11 June 2024.
  5. ↑ Gritten, David (13 May 2001). "When the Job Is Odious". Los Angeles Times. ProQuest   421804647.
  6. ↑ "Conspiracy". Rotten Tomatoes . Fandango Media. Archived from the original on 23 October 2005. Retrieved 15 July 2021.
  7. ↑ Steinweis, Alan (April 2002). "Review of Conspiracy (BBC/HBO Films), directed by Frank Pierson from a script by Loring Mandel". American Historical Review. 107 (2): 674–675. doi:10.1086/532485 – via University of Nebraska Lincoln digital commons.
  8. ↑ Rampton, James (19 January 2002). "Conspiracy review". The Independent . London: Independent Print Ltd.
  9. ↑ Raymond, Christian. "Conspiracy". Austin Film Society. Austin, Texas. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016.
  10. ↑ "2001 Artios Awards". www.castingsociety.com. 4 October 2001. Retrieved 10 July 2023.
  11. ↑ "5th Annual Television Awards (2000-01)". Online Film & Television Association. Retrieved 10 July 2023.
  12. ↑ "Conspiracy". Peabody Awards . Retrieved 10 July 2023.
  13. ↑ "Conspiracy". Emmys.com. Academy of Television Arts & Sciences . Retrieved 13 July 2021.
  14. ↑ "AFI Awards 2001" . Retrieved 10 July 2023.
  15. ↑ "54th DGA Awards". Directors Guild of America Awards . Retrieved 10 July 2023.
  16. ↑ "Conspiracy – Golden Globes". Golden Globe Awards . Retrieved 10 July 2023.
  17. ↑ "International Press Academy website – 2002 6th Annual SATELLITE Awards". Archived from the original on 1 February 2008.
  18. ↑ "WGA Awards 2002". Writers Guild of America Awards. Archived from the original on 7 March 2016. Retrieved 24 December 2015.
  19. ↑ "BAFTA Awards: Television in 2003". BAFTA . 2003. Retrieved 10 July 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.