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On Jan. 20, 1942, 15 high-ranking German officials met at Wannsee, near Berlin, to discuss the â€œJewish problem.â€ Although Adolf Eichmann (Tucci) had assembled the group, the influential Gen. Reinhard Heydrich (Branagh) led the discussion. Despite token opposition, the confident Heydrich generated unanimous support for a plan to eliminate the Jews. The meeting lasted just two hours.
Only one copy of Eichmann's transcript survived the war, and it served as the basis for this film.
Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Stanley Tucci, Colin Firth, Barnaby Kay, Ben Daniels, David Threlfall, Jonathan Coy, Brenden Coyle, Ian McNeice.
I just saw this on HBO.
No documentary shots spliced in, no cannons roaring, no black smoke, just 15 men discussing the Final Solution. Many of us think that Wannsee Conference was Hitler, Himmler, Goering. No, 15 men, some of them bureaucrats, some SS and Gestapo officers, and presiding - Heydrich, the butcher of Czechoslovakia. This film gives a lot of insight into the "technical nitty-gritty" of how excactly the Germans wanted to dispose of the European Jews(the word "evacuation" was put in place of "extermination").
The story one participant that was opposed to the extermination told to Heidrich was about a man who hated his father since boyhood. Consequently, he loved and worshipped his mother. When he was about 30 years old, his mother passed away. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't shed a tear at the funeral. Many years passed. His father, who was a very old man by then, finally passed away. And this man couldn't contain his tears that were pouring out like the rain. Why? He hated his father so much and loved his mother so much, he should have cried when she died, not his father...
The answer was that he was so consumed by hatred for his father, that after his father's death he lost the object of his life - the hatred. He had nothing to live for. That's what one of the characters in the film warned would happen to the Germans after all the Jews were gone...
Watch it! The whole Wannsee Conference lasted about 2 hours, this film is only 20 minutes shorter.

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Kimber Kable

Topic - CONSPIRACY - Dmitry 00:20:37 05/23/01 (0)

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