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Conspiracy

741 statements
146 feature instances
1 referencing feature instances

Conspiracy	type	TVTItem
Conspiracy	label	Conspiracy
Conspiracy	page	Conspiracy
Conspiracy	comment	Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_content_3'); })Conspiracy is a 2001 HBO / BBC TV film that 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 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) It is an English-language adaptation of Die Wannseekonferenz, a German film that tackled the same subject matter; both films are shot in Real Time 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.Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_content_2'); })Starring an Ensemble Cast, including Kenneth Branagh, Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci, 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) Reinhard Heydrich, the conference's ranking member, arrives and explains that they are there to discuss what to do with 'The Jews'.Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_content_1'); })Though the meeting is phrased as a discussion panel for the formulation of policy, Reinhard Heydrich 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 they feel the mass execution of all 'unskilled' Jews goes too far or 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.The film is a unique examination of the psychology and logic of genocide. It is one of very few attempts to tell the human story of those who planned elements of the Holocaust, and how they came to terms with what they felt they had to do. To help in this regard actors were expected to remain both in-costume and in-character for each day of filming. Kenneth Branagh, who played Reinhard Heydrich, has said that filming Conspiracy was one of the most disturbing experiences of his acting career. The film was shot in ten minute takes, often requiring actors to memorize a large amount of script, using only one fixed set, and natural lighting. There is no soundtrack.All portrayed characters were actual German officials who took part in the real Wannsee Conference, with their accurate ranks and areas of responsibility.
Conspiracy	fetched	2019-04-16T19:40:04Z
Conspiracy	parsed	2020-06-24T02:20:49Z
Conspiracy	processingComment	Dropped link to ForeignRemake: Not a Feature - ITEM
Conspiracy	processingComment	Dropped link to FranzSchubert: Not a Feature - IGNORE
Conspiracy	processingComment	Dropped link to ShaggyDogStory: Not a Feature - ITEM
Conspiracy	isPartOf	DBTropes
Conspiracy / int_1206dd74	type	Victory Is Boring
Conspiracy / int_1206dd74	comment	Victory Is Boring: After Heydrich blackmails Kritzinger into submitting to his authority, Kritzinger warns him where his genocide will lead by telling Heydrich a story about a man whose life was rendered meaningless after his goal in seeing the abusive father whom he hated finally die was completed. Heydrich later discusses the same matter with Mueller and Eichmann, and wonders what they would do with an ideology and creed built around hate if all the Jews in the world were eradicated. Eichmann doesn't know the answer, but the point goes right over Heydrich's head, who bluntly states that he won't miss them.
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Conspiracy / int_12dc4d97	type	Greedy Jew
Conspiracy / int_12dc4d97	comment	Greedy Jew: Discussed Trope. There's an interesting back-and-forth between Heydrich and Kritzinger when the former gets fed up with the latter's recalcitrance to sign off on the Holocaust. Heydrich parrots the usual Nazi party line of a Jewish conspiracy controlling the banks when Kritzinger basically calls him a liar to his face. Realizing that they're never going to see eye to eye, Heydrich resorts to death threats instead to get him on board.
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Conspiracy / int_14780a0b	type	I Don't Pay You to Think
Conspiracy / int_14780a0b	comment	I Don't Pay You to Think: When Heydrich notes that the secretary will be discreet about the proceedings that will discuss mass murder, Eichmann replies that the man in question agrees. Heydrich sarcastically replies "He agrees? Excellent".
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Conspiracy / int_1528593d	type	Thousand-Year Reign
Conspiracy / int_1528593d	comment	Thousand-Year Reign: Referenced several times, as the film takes place at a time when the Nazis were absolutely convinced that they were moments away from victory.
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Conspiracy / int_1645005b	type	Evil Versus Evil
Conspiracy / int_1645005b	comment	Another one in the Evil vs. Evil conflict is between Heydrich and Kritzinger. The latter consistently objects to the "Final Solution" which Heydrich is pushing because he is the only man among the Nazis who thinks that exterminating the Jews is wrong. Heydrich eventually deconstructs Kritzinger's attempt at Even Evil Has Standards, because he knowingly consented to sterilizing and enslaving them before. Heydrich is an evil mass murderer, but he acknowledges this, whereas Kritzinger deludes himself into thinking that making a moral stand at that point somehow negates the crimes he has already committed.
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Conspiracy / int_18baa751	type	Historical Villain Downgrade
Conspiracy / int_18baa751	comment	Historical Villain Downgrade: 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 Shell-Shocked Veteran, although this is used in order to highlight the Real Life 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.
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Conspiracy / int_19851b86	type	The Sociopath
Conspiracy / int_19851b86	comment	The Sociopath: 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. Schoengarth 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 Schoengarth 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 Schoengarth either cannot or does not bother to do.
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Conspiracy / int_19dcd4bc	type	Sand in My Eyes
Conspiracy / int_19dcd4bc	comment	Sand In My Eyes: When they finally get past the preamble of the meeting and Eichmann begins describing, in detail, the method of mass gas extermination, Otto Hofmann 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.
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Conspiracy / int_19fc58a2	type	A Lighter Shade of Black
Conspiracy / int_19fc58a2	comment	A Lighter Shade of Black: Kritzinger, while still a proud servant of the Fuehrer who's glad to oppress the Jewish people, is the only one appaled by the concept of complete extermination.
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Conspiracy / int_1c6ded94	type	Wicked Cultured
Conspiracy / int_1c6ded94	comment	Wicked Cultured: Played straight with Heydrich: he finds a record of Franz Schubert'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. The conference as a whole: a business luncheon - held at a palatial estate in a fancy Berlin suburb, catered with 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. Lange overlaps this with the Cultured Warrior; the only one of the participants currently serving in frontline combat, his first words to Eichmann are to gush over the beauty of the house they're meeting in.
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Conspiracy / int_1d47b2b7	type	Unable to Cry
Conspiracy / int_1d47b2b7	comment	Unable to Cry: Offscreen, Dr. Kritzinger tells Reinhard Heydrich a story about an old friend who had an abusive father but a doting mother. The man was unable to cry at his mother's funeral, but was strangely broken down in tears and sobbing uncontrollably at his father's funeral. It was because his father's hatred defined the man's life more than his mother's love ever did, rendering him an empty shell who had lost his purpose when the object of his hatred was gone. This ties into a warning that Kritzinger is trying to give Heydrich about Nazis' anti-Semitism.
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Conspiracy / int_1f4bb5b4	type	Let Me Tell You a Story
Conspiracy / int_1f4bb5b4	comment	Let Me Tell You a Story: 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 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.
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Conspiracy / int_20860a0e	type	Punch-Clock Villain
Conspiracy / int_20860a0e	comment	Punch-Clock Villain: This trope is taken to its most terrifying extreme, as the Nazis are debating the planning of a genocide of millions as matter-of-factly as they would if it were a business meeting between the heads of a major company. In the end it's simply an administrative job for them, discussed over lunch, as they're all part of a larger machine with only Heydrich having any real authority. Then again it varies from one character to the next. For some, it's just a job, and they enjoy doing their job effectively. Others actually enjoy what they're doing. Eichmann himself was the most notable example of this trope, being completely emotionally detached from his actions; in the film he actually comes off as one of the least inherently anti-Semitic characters who even paid some Jewish rabbi to learn some Yiddish and Hebrew words. It's no coincidence that the famous phrase the banality of evil was coined by Hanna Arendt in regards to him. Heydrich was arguably this as well in Real Life; in the film, however, he seems to actually believe in what he's doing.
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Conspiracy / int_24321e44	type	Only Sane Man
Conspiracy / int_24321e44	comment	Only Sane Man: 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:
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Conspiracy / int_267ce120	type	Dirty Old Man
Conspiracy / int_267ce120	comment	Dirty Old Man: 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]."
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Conspiracy / int_297edb93	type	British Nazis
Conspiracy / int_297edb93	comment	British Nazis: Every Nazi except Eichmann (who is played by the American Stanley Tucci) 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 Kenneth Branagh could do "Saxony-Anhalt".
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Conspiracy / int_2b2c66c3	type	Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor
Conspiracy / int_2b2c66c3	comment	Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: A sick sense of humor, as the Nazis specialize in Black Humor and racist jokes that are only funny to other Nazis. Roland Freisler probably makes the worst one when he cracks a joke about the effects of the gas chambers on "Communist" Jews.
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Conspiracy / int_2dae4381	type	My Master, Right or Wrong
Conspiracy / int_2dae4381	comment	My Master, Right or Wrong: 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.
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Conspiracy / int_2e8441c9	type	The Bad Guy Wins
Conspiracy / int_2e8441c9	comment	The Bad Guy Wins: They're all bad guys, mind you. It's just that the lesser bad guys are overruled by the more evil ones by the end. Heydrich gradually squashes any dissenting opinion and forces all the other ministries that opposed the genocide in some way to fall into line with the SS, and the Holocaust goes ahead as planned. Some of the attendees were punished for their crimes during and after the war such as Heydrich being assassinated and Eichmann captured in Argentina and dragged to Israel for trial, but to serve their own national self-interest the British and American occupation authorities ensured that the rest became Karma Houdinis.
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Conspiracy / int_2eb94abd	type	Deadly Euphemism
Conspiracy / int_2eb94abd	comment	Deadly Euphemism: 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, asking if mass killings were meant by "evacuation". Heydrich simply responds that they were. Infamously, this is Truth in Television regarding all official Nazi documents, in which direct references to the deadly nature of the Final Solution 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.
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Conspiracy / int_319e4a2f	type	Even Evil Has Standards
Conspiracy / int_319e4a2f	comment	Even Evil Has Standards: 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 Real Life 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. 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 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 Buehler 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 Hoffmann 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 blame it on mixing alcohol at lunch, and then on a bad cigar.
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Conspiracy / int_3255968b	type	Implied Death Threat
Conspiracy / int_3255968b	comment	Implied Death Threat: Heydrich to Kritzinger and Stuckart.
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Conspiracy / int_35b241c0	type	Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping
Conspiracy / int_35b241c0	comment	Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: David Threfall 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.
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Conspiracy / int_35f57671	type	Minion with an F in Evil
Conspiracy / int_35f57671	comment	Minion with an F in Evil: Deconstructed by Heydrich to Kritzinger.
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Conspiracy / int_3ae6199a	type	Psychopathic Manchild
Conspiracy / int_3ae6199a	comment	Psychopathic Manchild: Schoengarth 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, Schoengarth, in the midst of cutting a new one, actually goes "awwww".
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Conspiracy / int_3bc88a7f	type	Foregone Conclusion
Conspiracy / int_3bc88a7f	comment	Foregone Conclusion: The participants at the meeting are summoned under the pretence that their views and perspectives on potential solutions to the 'Jewish Problem' are being sought. It eventually becomes clear, however, that the solution has already been determined, and they are there to basically receive orders and rubber stamp everything. It was also a Secret Test of Character to see how they would react.
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Conspiracy / int_3eee0728	type	Captain Obvious
Conspiracy / int_3eee0728	comment	Captain Obvious: "Hoffmann, SS Race and Settlement Main Office, we deal with matters of race and settlement."
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Conspiracy / int_40bb59d0	type	Blatant Lies
Conspiracy / int_40bb59d0	comment	Blatant Lies: Heydrich is a 'font' of these.
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Conspiracy / int_40c57041	type	Manipulative Bastard
Conspiracy / int_40c57041	comment	Manipulative Bastard: 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.
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Conspiracy / int_4127eb1	type	ShutUpHannibal
Conspiracy / int_4127eb1	comment	Shut Up, Hannibal!: Downplayed. When Neuman is talking to Mueller towards the end of the meeting, and Mueller begins to again restate his usual speech about unity of vision and avoiding internal conflict, Neuman just holds up his hand and says "Spare me" before walking off in the middle of his sentence.
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Conspiracy / int_42c9f1ec	type	Downplayed Trope
Conspiracy / int_42c9f1ec	comment	Stuckart is a downplayed example. He does object against the holocaust and brutality of his companions, but not on moral grounds (and indeed, he's an unapologetic anti-Semite), rather 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.
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Conspiracy / int_43b154c9	type	Not Even Bothering with the Accent
Conspiracy / int_43b154c9	comment	Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Only minor characters attempt a German accent. All the actors playing Nazis at the table use their native accents, although Stanley Tucci tones down his New York accent slightly.
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Conspiracy / int_45fe3a2e	type	Utopia Justifies the Means
Conspiracy / int_45fe3a2e	comment	Utopia Justifies the Means: Heydrich has a personal talk with Major Lange about the duties of soldiering. Heydrich seems to view himself as some sort of impromptu mentor figure to Lange (who was the lowest-ranked man at the meeting, personally selected by Heydrich because of his experience of the mass killings in Latvia), as he tries to convince Lange that all the death they're causing (including annihilating an entire people) is for a "better future". Given Heydrich's sociopathic qualities it's doubtful that he actually believes it himself and was instead just turning up the charm, but Lange takes the message at face value.
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Conspiracy / int_469e3e2f	type	In-Universe
Conspiracy / int_469e3e2f	comment	Invoked In-Universe when several delegates favour the sterilization plan. Eventually Heydrich loses patience and states bluntly that killing is the best method of wiping out the Jews and that's what they're going with; see Stating the Simple Solution below.
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Conspiracy / int_4971b851	type	Aggressive Categorism
Conspiracy / int_4971b851	comment	Aggressive Categorism: Heydrich and Stuckhart are on opposite ends of this trope. Stuckhart 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.
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Conspiracy / int_4c506837	type	The Snack Is More Interesting
Conspiracy / int_4c506837	comment	The Snack Is More Interesting: The attendees often seem as interested in the refreshments as the subject of their discussion.
Conspiracy / int_4c506837	featureApplicability	1.0
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Conspiracy / int_4d7a7d53	type	I'd Tell You, but Then I'd Have to Kill You
Conspiracy / int_4d7a7d53	comment	I'd Tell You, but Then I'd Have to Kill You: When everybody is introducing themselves to the group, SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Rudolf Lange gives his title and says "among other things." Heydrich responds that they all have "other things." His "other things" just so happens to be command of an Einsatzkommando unit, charged with executing Jews, Gypsies, communists, and other undesirables behind the advancing German army; essentially a mobile Holocaust unit. At a certain point in point in the meeting, he completely drops any pretense of secrecy about what he does, and he and Kritzinger have a rather frank discussion about it during their lunch break.
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Conspiracy / int_51300dbf	type	FatBastard
Conspiracy / int_51300dbf	comment	Fat Bastard: Klopfer, overweight and vile. (The real Klopfer wasn't fat at all.)
Conspiracy / int_51300dbf	featureApplicability	1.0
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Conspiracy / int_51c70be6	type	Obliviously Evil
Conspiracy / int_51c70be6	comment	Obliviously Evil: Otto Hoffman 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.
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Conspiracy / int_5313c266	type	Bookends
Conspiracy / int_5313c266	comment	Book-Ends: The opening and closing shots of the film parallel each other. It begins with a member of the villa's staff (the maid) turning the lights on inside the conference room in the morning, and ends with another one (the butler) turning them off in the evening after everyone has long left.
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Conspiracy / int_537dd8fe	type	Affably Evil
Conspiracy / int_537dd8fe	comment	Affably Evil: An extremely chilling example of this trope. A group of intelligent, cultivated, soft-spoken men having a secret conference in Germany in 1942 about what to do with the "storage problem" of the Jews in Europe. And it is based on the minutes of the actual meeting.
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Conspiracy / int_53f5119f	type	The Dragon
Conspiracy / int_53f5119f	comment	The Dragon: Technically speaking, Heydrich is this to Big Bad Heinrich Himmler (who is, in turn, The Dragon to Greater-Scope Villain Adolf Hitler). For the purposes of the film, however, Heydrich is pretty much Big Bad on his own.
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Conspiracy / int_556a4e20	type	The Empire
Conspiracy / int_556a4e20	comment	The Empire: The protagonists are bureaucrats of a totalitarian, conquering empire which is presently invading the rest of Europe and engaging in genocide.
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Conspiracy / int_55bf1a48	type	At Least I Admit It
Conspiracy / int_55bf1a48	comment	At Least I Admit It: Heydrich's final conversation with Kritzinger reveals that his disdain for the man isn't just because he's opposing him. It's also because he was perfectly fine with the persecution, abuse, impoverishment, enslavement, eventual sterilization and indefinite imprisonment of the Jews, but only now, when outright genocide is on the table, does he suddenly have a moral objection. Even Heydrich is visibly disgusted by this, since he has no issue with admitting what he is, what they're going to do, and why.
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Conspiracy / int_56515a39	type	Artistic License â€“ History
Conspiracy / int_56515a39	comment	Artistic License – History: While the source material available to historians contains most of reservations voiced by the characters In-Universe, the arguments never reached the level shown in the film (there were no breaks during the session in Real Life, 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. 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 Corrupt Corporate Executive 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.
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Conspiracy / int_572249f0	type	Straight Edge Evil
Conspiracy / int_572249f0	comment	Straight Edge Evil: Nazi official Eichmann is a very composed man who doesn't indulge in the foods or cigars prepared for the attendants 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.
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Conspiracy / int_57c004fc	type	Threat Backfire
Conspiracy / int_57c004fc	comment	Threat Backfire: When Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart explains, almost ranting, why Operation Reinhard is a bad idea (because of all the German laws they are violating and the mess they would create), Dr. Gerhard Klopfer, having been directly insulted numerous times over the course of said explanation, leans across the table and says, very lowly: "I'll remember you." Stuckart responds "You should. I'm very well known."
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Conspiracy / int_5a963d1c	type	False Reassurance
Conspiracy / int_5a963d1c	comment	False Reassurance: Kritzinger believes that the 'Final Solution to the Jewish Question' that is being discussed will not involve their complete annihilation because "That possibility has been personally denied to me by the Fuehrer!" When it looks like the discussion is progressing in this fashion, he brings this up again in outrage — and Heydrich, the chairman of the meeting, simply replies "And it will continue to be." Kritzinger finally realises that Heydrich is not saying there will be no extermination, but that Hitler will instead continue to lie about it for plausible deniability.
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Conspiracy / int_5b565147	type	Meaningful Background Event
Conspiracy / int_5b565147	comment	Meaningful Background Event: In the beginning of the film, when all the participants are arriving at the house before the meeting begins, several short scenes focus on different groups of people introducing themselves and engaging in small talk. In almost all of these scenes Eichmann can be seen in the background just behind the people talking. He does not participate in the conversations, but is simply there, observing everything and everyone.
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Conspiracy / int_5ca80293	type	Pragmatic Villainy
Conspiracy / int_5ca80293	comment	Pragmatic Villainy: 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 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:
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Conspiracy / int_5d6db368	type	Four Eyes, Zero Soul
Conspiracy / int_5d6db368	comment	Four Eyes, Zero Soul: 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.
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Conspiracy / int_613ecc2d	type	Riding into the Sunset
Conspiracy / int_613ecc2d	comment	Riding into the Sunset: The film ends with the maid (who is clueless about the whole affair) being picked up by her boyfriend (the radio operator, also in the dark) on his bicycle. They ride away and can be heard giggling.
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Conspiracy / int_63c6a75c	type	Evil Lawyer Joke
Conspiracy / int_63c6a75c	comment	Evil Lawyer Joke: When the law keeps being brought up as an obstacle to the proposed policies, Dr. Gerhard Klopfer remarks that they will just change the law. After all, how many of the people here are lawyers? When the majority of members of the conference all raise their hands (Including himself) he laughs and remarks that it was even worse than he thought.
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Conspiracy / int_6469d82f	type	Euphemism Buster
Conspiracy / int_6469d82f	comment	Euphemism Buster: Eventually, after yet another mention of "evacuation", Lange — the only person present who is currently active in combat — stands up and asks whether he "evacuated 30,000 Jews already by shooting them." Kritzinger, whose department has proceeded on assurances the Jews will be held in "liveable conditions", never lets Eichmann or Heydrich get away with cloaking brutality with ambiguity. On the other hand it's clear that the "liveable conditions" are in reality overcrowded Polish ghettos with a high risk of disease. Heydrich later calls Kritzinger on his hypocrisy for being willing to accept everything short of genocide.
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Conspiracy / int_697b5232	type	Those Wacky Nazis
Conspiracy / int_697b5232	comment	Those Wacky Nazis: Averted in that like Schindler's List it's a realistic film, not a portrayal of any particular Nazi stereotypes. In fact, aside from the men who actually worked directly in the concentration camps, these are among the worst of the lot. Played with in that they're the protagonists of the story.
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Conspiracy / int_6b05b601	type	Jerkass Has a Point
Conspiracy / int_6b05b601	comment	Jerkass Has a Point: When Kritzinger finally has a one-on-one conversation with Heydrich, the latter points out how hypocritical his moral objections to the Final Solution are. He's accepted everything short of outright murder prior to this, including enslavement, marginalization, and imprisonment, so why should this be any different? Even Kritzinger can't manage a response to that. When Stuckart goes on a rant about how ignorant and misinformed the Nazi Party's antisemitism is, Klopfer not-so-subtly threatens to report Stuckart to a higher authority. Stuckart brushes him off, saying that the Party has no dominion over the government, but Heydrich takes him aside and very strongly implies that Klopfer wasn't just blowing hot-air, and that the Party is, in fact, dominant over the government in Hitler's esteem. Several of the conference members opposed to the Final Solution make the argument that reducing the population of available labor while fighting a war is a bad idea. Josef Buhler points out that, in the Eastern ghettos at least, none of the Jews are fit for labor anyway: all of them are old or diseased, and those that aren't have never worked a day of hard labor in their lives.
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Conspiracy / int_6bd689ca	type	Meaningful Echo
Conspiracy / int_6bd689ca	comment	Meaningful Echo: Before the meeting begins, Dr. Kritzinger comments on how the SS always want more, even though they already have everything. When Heydrich later demands Kritzinger's support for his plans, Kritzinger explains that he will not oppose him, but Heydrich says that he needs more. Kritzinger's only response is "Of course." Luther arrives for the meeting with a "memorandum of recommendations" for Eichmann to give to Heydrich, which Eichmann politely brushes off. Later, Heydrich thanks him for the memo, but when Luther claims he "heard some of what I wrote in what you have already said," Heydrich bluntly replies, "I think not."
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Conspiracy / int_6eeba1cb	type	Shut Up, Kirk!
Conspiracy / int_6eeba1cb	comment	After getting fed up of Stuckart's very vocal advocation of mass sterilisation, Heydrich puts him back in his place:
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Conspiracy / int_729c69f3	type	Politically Incorrect Villain
Conspiracy / int_729c69f3	comment	Politically Incorrect Villain: Every character is a Nazi. Were you even remotely surprised that they're all foul racists?
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Conspiracy / int_74c69a97	type	Nazi Protagonist
Conspiracy / int_74c69a97	comment	Nazi Protagonist: Every single character is either working for the Nazi government or one of its subsidiary organizations.
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Conspiracy / int_7831c048	type	So Much for Stealth
Conspiracy / int_7831c048	comment	So Much for Stealth: Stuckart argues that you just can't 'evacuate' millions of people without non-Jewish relatives clogging the courts for decades settling issues of inheritance or divorce. "What happens to your secret killings then?"
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Conspiracy / int_78c5ce7e	type	Screw the Rules, I Make Them!
Conspiracy / int_78c5ce7e	comment	Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: 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 what to do about it. When Stuckhart, who wrote the law, complains, they suggest that he just make new ones.
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Conspiracy / int_7a143509	type	Shell-Shocked Veteran
Conspiracy / int_7a143509	comment	Shell-Shocked Veteran: 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.
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Conspiracy / int_7d89315b	type	"The Reason You Suck" Speech
Conspiracy / int_7d89315b	comment	"The Reason You Suck" Speech: There's a peculiar one in which Dr. Stuckart rants about how Klopfer and his colleagues in the Nazi Party are a bunch of simple-minded thugs who believe every word of Party propaganda about Jews being unintelligent vermin, and notes that "pigs don't know how to hate". In the course of doing this however, he establishes that he's just as anti-Semitic as Klopfer, just a more intellectual and articulate one. Another one in the Evil vs. Evil conflict is between Heydrich and Kritzinger. The latter consistently objects to the "Final Solution" which Heydrich is pushing because he is the only man among the Nazis who thinks that exterminating the Jews is wrong. Heydrich eventually deconstructs Kritzinger's attempt at Even Evil Has Standards, because he knowingly consented to sterilizing and enslaving them before. Heydrich is an evil mass murderer, but he acknowledges this, whereas Kritzinger deludes himself into thinking that making a moral stand at that point somehow negates the crimes he has already committed.
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Conspiracy / int_7febc23b	type	Establishing Character Moment
Conspiracy / int_7febc23b	comment	Establishing Character Moment: 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 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 Wansee 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 partake in the rumor-mongering about the situation in Moscow, stating bluntly that the German forces are stalled for the winter. "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 Stuckhart to actually give his name.
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Conspiracy / int_82384b1	type	Never Hurt an Innocent
Conspiracy / int_82384b1	comment	Never Hurt an Innocent: Downplayed. It's pointed out that the massacres in the east are causing problems because the soldiers are upset at being ordered to shoot women and children, especially if the victims are German.
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Conspiracy / int_854601b3	type	Government Procedural
Conspiracy / int_854601b3	comment	Government Procedural: All the main characters are government officials, and the film revolves around their proceedings, which culminates in genocide.
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Conspiracy / int_8573ac0a	type	The Social Darwinist
Conspiracy / int_8573ac0a	comment	The Social Darwinist: 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".
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Conspiracy / int_86f4f393	type	Stating the Simple Solution
Conspiracy / int_86f4f393	comment	Stating the Simple Solution: After all the legal and manpower issues are raised, Stuckart says the easiest solution is to sterilize the entire Jewish population, letting them die out naturally. After getting fed up of Stuckart's very vocal advocation of mass sterilisation, Heydrich puts him back in his place:
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Conspiracy / int_898ff050	type	Villain Protagonist
Conspiracy / int_898ff050	comment	Villain Protagonist: Every character in this film is a member of the Nazi party and a high-ranking official of a totalitarian regime engaging in wars of conquest and extermination, while their objective is to organize a continental genocide.
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Conspiracy / int_8a4ec732	type	Forced into Evil
Conspiracy / int_8a4ec732	comment	Forced into Evil: Stuckart and Kritzinger are threatened with "attention" from the SS if they do not play along, although they were both already in favour of the sterilization and persecution of the Jews before things progressed to extermination.
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Conspiracy / int_8cb01d0e	type	Category Traitor
Conspiracy / int_8cb01d0e	comment	Category Traitor: Some of the Nazi officials are concerned with the plight of German spouses of the German Jews they want to murder when those people's husbands and wives are taken away. Others counter that they feel they're "race traitors" anyway and should be treated as such. SS General Heinrich Mueller goes so far as to say that he'd happily throw them all on the same transport if it were up to him. In that same scene, Klopfer and Stuckart get into a verbal spat over euthanasia and sterilization, and Klopfer accuses Stuckart of sympathizing with Jews. Subverted, as Stuckart clarifies that he's simply a different type of anti-Semite than Klopfer, who sees Jews as subhumanoids, whereas Stuckart sees them as diabolical geniuses plotting to take over the world.
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Conspiracy / int_90e31482	type	Laser-Guided Karma
Conspiracy / int_90e31482	comment	Laser-Guided Karma: 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.
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Conspiracy / int_928ca2cc	type	You Have Outlived Your Usefulness
Conspiracy / int_928ca2cc	comment	You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Eichmann expands on his obsession with Jews by telling a story about how he arranged with a Rabbi to teach him Hebrew, even paying the man out of his own pocket after his superior denied him the funds. The Rabbi was suddenly deported, and Eichmann notes that if the Rabbi had asked him he would have protected the man... until his lessons were complete.
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Conspiracy / int_95b7c400	type	Faux Affably Evil
Conspiracy / int_95b7c400	comment	Faux Affably Evil: 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.
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Conspiracy / int_970c790a	type	Big Bad
Conspiracy / int_970c790a	comment	Big Bad: Reinhard Heydrich. He's the most high-ranking and powerful Nazi in the film, and directs every step of the Holocaust and the conference.
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Conspiracy / int_99305f1f	type	Round Table Shot
Conspiracy / int_99305f1f	comment	Round Table Shot: Done twice: first when the participants introduce their names and ranks, second when the conference's chairman Reinhard Heydrich asks them all individually for their support for his "solution".
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Conspiracy / int_997d5872	type	"Ass" in Ambassador
Conspiracy / int_997d5872	comment	Ass in Ambassador: 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.
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Conspiracy / int_9b06e314	type	Greater-Scope Villain
Conspiracy / int_9b06e314	comment	Greater-Scope Villain: The unseen Adolf Hitler. 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.
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Conspiracy / int_9c47b23b	type	Dirty Communists
Conspiracy / int_9c47b23b	comment	Dirty Communists: In-universe, the Nazis view all Jews as this and Germany's war with the U.S.S.R is mentioned in passing. Roland Freisler, however, argues that the Russian people themselves are not communist at all, but will simply accept whatever role is forced upon them provided they are given the basic needs of survival...in an extremely racist but manner unsurprisingly that is inadvertently complimentary to the Jews by comparison.
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Conspiracy / int_9f970427	type	Secret-Keeper
Conspiracy / int_9f970427	comment	Secret Keeper
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Conspiracy / int_a2cb509b	type	Tested on Humans
Conspiracy / int_a2cb509b	comment	Tested on Humans: The Zyklon-B gas they plan to use has already been used on the terminally ill, the hereditary disabled and some Jews.
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Conspiracy / int_a3cdf764	type	Drinking on Duty
Conspiracy / int_a3cdf764	comment	Drinking on Duty: Invoked. Heydrich offers Eichmann a drink at the end to congratulate themselves on organizing a genocide. Eichmann notes he is still on duty, so his superior simply orders him to indulge himself.
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Conspiracy / int_a70223	type	Karma Houdini
Conspiracy / int_a70223	comment	Karma Houdini: As explained in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue, the British and American (OMGUS, Office of Military Government United States) occupation authorities ensured that most of the participants served prison terms of no more than six years, were acquitted at trial and went free, or were never brought to trial and charged with anything in the first place. This was partly to save money, but mostly to preserve the upper-echelons of the German civil service and military so that Germany would be as cooperative and effective an alliance partner (against the nascent Eastern Bloc) as possible. To this end they also blocked some extradition requests by the postwar communist governments of Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Soviet Union et al. since they tended to execute their Génocidaires. Klopfer, in particular, is among the most repulsive characters in a film full of villains, but faced no punishment for his part in the Holocaust and lived longer than any of the others, dying of natural causes more than 40 years after the war.
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Conspiracy / int_a7aef9ff	type	Obfuscating Stupidity
Conspiracy / int_a7aef9ff	comment	Obfuscating Stupidity: Variation. Neuman 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.
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Conspiracy / int_a80ad52c	type	Hanging Judge
Conspiracy / int_a80ad52c	comment	Hanging Judge: 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 highest judicial 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 - which makes his death by the collapse of the column of the court-building Poetic Justice in more ways than one.
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Conspiracy / int_a8559a9f	type	RealLife
Conspiracy / int_a8559a9f	comment	Eichmann himself was the most notable example of this trope, being completely emotionally detached from his actions; in the film he actually comes off as one of the least inherently anti-Semitic characters who even paid some Jewish rabbi to learn some Yiddish and Hebrew words. It's no coincidence that the famous phrase the banality of evil was coined by Hanna Arendt in regards to him. Heydrich was arguably this as well in Real Life; in the film, however, he seems to actually believe in what he's doing.
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Conspiracy / int_a8593e70	type	Real Time
Conspiracy / int_a8593e70	comment	Real Time: Like the German original, the events within the conference room strictly follow the minutes of the meeting that took place, which was over in less than 90 minutes.
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Conspiracy / int_a863ef67	type	Cultured Warrior
Conspiracy / int_a863ef67	comment	Lange overlaps this with the Cultured Warrior; the only one of the participants currently serving in frontline combat, his first words to Eichmann are to gush over the beauty of the house they're meeting in.
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Conspiracy / int_a969c74a	type	Final Solution
Conspiracy / int_a969c74a	comment	Final Solution: Follows the detailed formulation and dissemination of the plan for the Final Solution.
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Conspiracy / int_acf33d00	type	Nice Job Fixing It, Villain
Conspiracy / int_acf33d00	comment	Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: The only reason we have any idea what happened during the conference is because Martin Luther neglected to destroy his notes as instructed.
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Conspiracy / int_acf8f71a	type	Dispense with the Pleasantries
Conspiracy / int_acf8f71a	comment	Dispense with the Pleasantries: Variation. When Heydrich walks into the villa to chair the Wannsee meeting, the other senior Nazis all perform a Hitler salute. Heydrich orders everyone to forego the greeting for the remainder of the discussions to cut down on time. This immediately sets the tone for the rest of the film: Heydrich's sole objective is to remove all red tape standing in the way of the Holocaust, not to discuss policy in any meaningful sense.
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Conspiracy / int_ad1db87c	type	Oh, Crap!
Conspiracy / int_ad1db87c	comment	Oh, Crap!: One SS driver has such a reaction when he turns round after a snowball fight and sees Eichmann standing there. This only gets worse as Eichmann threatens him with the Russian Front.
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Conspiracy / int_adfd3165	type	For the Evulz
Conspiracy / int_adfd3165	comment	For the Evulz: Lampshaded by Dr. Friesler, who questions whether the meeting was even necessary, if the crucial decsion had in fact already been made. Muller's explanation is that it's just Heydrich's style: he'd rather have the chance to persuade rather than just give orders.
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Conspiracy / int_ae3d6438	type	Deadpan Snarker
Conspiracy / int_ae3d6438	comment	Deadpan Snarker: 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.
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Conspiracy / int_aeb62a57	type	No Delays for the Wicked
Conspiracy / int_aeb62a57	comment	No Delays for the Wicked: Played out realistically, as invocation of this trope is in fact Heydrich's ultimate objective during the conference—to cut through all the bureaucratic objections and red tape to start his genocide as quickly as possible. He does this by invoking his authority to convince all the other officials to play along and blackmailing those who still refuse. Near the end he declares that the train system to the death camps will start moving in days instead of weeks, and later boasts that within a year the Nazis will have exterminated every Jew in Europe. While his estimate thankfully fell short of the mark, the trope was successfully invoked in Real Life: after Wannsee Conference the Third Reich was still plagued by bureacracy and Interservice Rivalry, but they rarely interfered with the proceeding of Final Solution.
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Conspiracy / int_aff674af	type	Malevolent Mugshot
Conspiracy / int_aff674af	comment	Malevolent Mugshot: The promotional material featured one of Eichmann and Heydrich◊.
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Conspiracy / int_b3096202	type	Oedipus Complex
Conspiracy / int_b3096202	comment	Oedipus Complex: 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.
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Conspiracy / int_b42b7e7b	type	Moral Myopia
Conspiracy / int_b42b7e7b	comment	Moral Myopia: The Nazis have more qualms about killing German Jews than Polish or Russian ones.
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Conspiracy / int_b5b3599d	type	Amoral Attorney
Conspiracy / int_b5b3599d	comment	Amoral Attorney: Several characters are either lawyers or Justice Ministry officials.
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Conspiracy / int_b77808f2	type	"Where Are They Now?" Epilogue
Conspiracy / int_b77808f2	comment	"Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Heydrich and Eichmann get a brief narration at the end describing what happened to them during the remainder of the war. The entire cast each get a brief text exposition, with a picture of the real person, explaining their ultimate fate after the war.
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Conspiracy / int_bb76c854	type	Classified Information
Conspiracy / int_bb76c854	comment	Classified Information: 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 tonote It was Martin Luther, in case you're wondering - he probably wasn't able to because he was arrested by Nazis themselves.
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Conspiracy / int_bc00493f	type	Precision F-Strike
Conspiracy / int_bc00493f	comment	Precision F-Strike: Heydrich tells Eichmann to stop being so stiff and have a fucking drink. Leibbrandt, who is otherwise depicted as well spoken throughout the conference, tells Neumann, "Fuck the extrapolatons!" when the latter tries to explain the labor shortage that will result if no Jews are left alive for use as slaves.
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Conspiracy / int_bc502e4b	type	You Are What You Hate
Conspiracy / int_bc502e4b	comment	You Are What You Hate: The movie features the rumors that Heydrich himself was partly Jewish in a back-and-forth between Klopfer and Mueller; ultimately it neither confirms nor denies them. There were such rumors in Real Life, but there is no evidence to support them.
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Conspiracy / int_bc74ef27	type	Berserk Button
Conspiracy / int_bc74ef27	comment	Berserk Button: 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 sent to the Russian front.
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Conspiracy / int_bce16d24	type	Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?
Conspiracy / int_bce16d24	comment	Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Luther asks this, only to by told by Lange that soldiers break down psychologically when they're asked to kill thousands of unarmed 'enemies', including women and children, many of whom were also German nationals. Luther is unimpressed, proclaiming that he would be ready to shoot Jews personally. But then Heydrich adds that it's a waste of time, manpower, and bullets. Then he turns the subject to gas.
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Conspiracy / int_c0d598fe	type	Evil Gloating
Conspiracy / int_c0d598fe	comment	Evil Gloating: Schoengarth gives a contemptuous wink to Buehler and Meyer when they confront him about undermining them.
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Conspiracy / int_c1fffb62	type	Industrialized Evil
Conspiracy / int_c1fffb62	comment	Industrialized Evil: The planning and practical execution of industrialized evil is the central event of the film. Heydrich openly boasts about how they applied the assembly line concept to a genocide.
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Conspiracy / int_c213d569	type	Snowball Fight
Conspiracy / int_c213d569	comment	Snowball Fight: The younger SS soldiers who are guarding the Wannsee compound engage in a snowball fight near the end of the conference, before Eichmann angrily berates them for unprofessional conduct and threatens to send them all to the Russian front.
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Conspiracy / int_c7d86fbe	type	Plausible Deniability
Conspiracy / int_c7d86fbe	comment	Plausible Deniability Towards the beginning of the film the radio operator takes a call for General Heydrich, after which Heydrich instructs Eichmann to end all further calls. Kritzinger is particularly frustrated by the meeting since everything Heydrich says goes against the public instructions he has received. Eichmann removing the guest book and burning the one page used is a clear indication from the beginning that the conference is being kept as off the books as possible. He also frequently motions the stenographer to pause his recording when the conversation veers into anything that could be clearly construed in a courtroom as conspiracy to murder.
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Conspiracy / int_c9aea8c8	type	Armies Are Evil
Conspiracy / int_c9aea8c8	comment	Armies Are Evil: 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 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".
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Conspiracy / int_cbe687ab	type	Corrupt Corporate Executive
Conspiracy / int_cbe687ab	comment	Corrupt Corporate Executive / Honest Corporate Executive: 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.
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Conspiracy / int_ce70175b	type	Sociopathic Soldier
Conspiracy / int_ce70175b	comment	Sociopathic Soldier: 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, 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.
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Conspiracy / int_ce767e6f	type	Co-Dragons
Conspiracy / int_ce767e6f	comment	Co-Dragons: Mueller and Eichmann, to Heydrich.
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Conspiracy / int_d001c42c	type	Anti-Villain
Conspiracy / int_d001c42c	comment	Anti-Villain: Dr. Kritzinger is the only Nazi official present at the conference who 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 downplayed example. He does object against the holocaust and brutality of his companions, but not on moral grounds (and indeed, he's an unapologetic anti-Semite), rather 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.
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Conspiracy / int_d3aad64a	type	Morally Ambiguous Doctorate
Conspiracy / int_d3aad64a	comment	Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Several of the attendees have doctorates (in law, as was the custom for government lawyers at the time), and the effects of medical experiments involving euthanasia of mental patients are also mentioned.
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Conspiracy / int_d54b9eb3	type	Inter-Service Rivalry
Conspiracy / int_d54b9eb3	comment	Interservice Rivalry: Much of the tension at the table is provided by the rivalry between the SS, the Party Chancellery, the Generalgouvernement, the Interior and Justice Ministries and the Office of the Four Year Plan. It's notable that in Real Life, Adolf Hitler specifically invoked this in a social darwinist method. Having all these factions fighting with each other left him to reign supreme above the rest of the system, and it would supposedly result in having the "strongest" prevailing over the others.
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Conspiracy / int_d5dfb30a	type	Professional Butt-Kisser
Conspiracy / int_d5dfb30a	comment	Professional Butt-Kisser 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 Goering. Neumann is hell-bent on ingratiating himself to all of the other guests, particularly Dr. Stuckhart.
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Conspiracy / int_d7ecbd57	type	You're Insane!
Conspiracy / int_d7ecbd57	comment	You're Insane!: Actually "We're insane", danced around but not said outright by some of the conspirators.
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Conspiracy / int_dbed9cf7	type	I Was Never Here
Conspiracy / int_dbed9cf7	comment	I Was Never Here: "This meeting is not taking place."
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Conspiracy / int_dc3e1299	type	Argentina Is Nazi-Land
Conspiracy / int_dc3e1299	comment	Argentina is Nazi-Land: Eichmann flees to Argentina after the war before he is captured by the Israeli Mossad and tried and executed for his crimes.
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Conspiracy / int_de56f2bf	type	Would Be Rude to Say "Genocide"
Conspiracy / int_de56f2bf	comment	Would Be Rude to Say "Genocide": The words "extermination" are almost never used, and are not written down as such by the secretary. Instead, everything is couched in euphemisms. Interestingly this was before the specific word "genocide" to denote such mass slaughters was coined. Coupled with the Translation Convention, Kritzinger and Lange struggle to come up with something that would encapsulate it as "war" is thoroughly insufficient and settle on "chaos".
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Conspiracy / int_e16217f8	type	Historical Villain Upgrade
Conspiracy / int_e16217f8	comment	Historical Villain Upgrade: 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.
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Conspiracy / int_e563bf09	type	Insistent Terminology
Conspiracy / int_e563bf09	comment	Insistent Terminology: Heydrich insists on referring to the slaughter of Jews as "evacuation," even long after its been made clear that they're talking about a massacre. After a while, the conference members all start correcting each other when they use a different term. While Eichmann and Heydrich are describing their "modificaitons" to the Nuremberg Laws, Stuckart attempts to interrupt the at regular intervals to make sure they're using the terminology that's actually in the laws. Naturally, since they're intending to disregard the law entirely, they ignore him.
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Conspiracy / int_e5c64f3f	type	Shame If Something Happened
Conspiracy / int_e5c64f3f	comment	Shame If Something Happened: When talking to Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart, who opposed any sort of ad hoc policy that looked to make a mess of German law, Heydrich convinced him to stop opposing Operation Reinhard by off-handedly mentioning how he would hate for his subordinates to notice Stuckart's obstruction.
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Conspiracy / int_e5fd8bc2	type	Hate Sink
Conspiracy / int_e5fd8bc2	comment	There's a peculiar one in which Dr. Stuckart rants about how Klopfer and his colleagues in the Nazi Party are a bunch of simple-minded thugs who believe every word of Party propaganda about Jews being unintelligent vermin, and notes that "pigs don't know how to hate". In the course of doing this however, he establishes that he's just as anti-Semitic as Klopfer, just a more intellectual and articulate one.
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Conspiracy / int_e68b72	type	TheLoad
Conspiracy / int_e68b72	comment	The Load: When Luther broaches the subject of the inevitable response of their Italian allies to the Holocaust, the rest of the participants let out a collective groan. Heydrich quickly sums up the German Nazis' sentiment:
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Conspiracy / int_e8ca5cb3	type	Freudian Slip
Conspiracy / int_e8ca5cb3	comment	Freudian Slip: Although Stuckart claims his position isn't based on "pride of authorship", he at one point refers to the Nuremberg Laws as "my" before correcting himself to "the".
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Conspiracy / int_eb04f8d5	type	Fascist, but Inefficient
Conspiracy / int_eb04f8d5	comment	Fascist, but Inefficient: Stuckart argues that the system for determining who has enough 'Jewish blood' is unworkable. The timetable for genocide is also impractical, as history showed.
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Conspiracy / int_eb8ec7c8	type	Jerkass
Conspiracy / int_eb8ec7c8	comment	Jerkass: One of the things that makes Dr. Klopfer a Hate Sink in addition to an evil Nazi is that he's obnoxious and rude even to his fellow Nazis.
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Conspiracy / int_f23ad6de	type	Food Porn
Conspiracy / int_f23ad6de	comment	The conference as a whole: a business luncheon - held at a palatial estate in a fancy Berlin suburb, catered with 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.
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Conspiracy / int_f2877d9e	type	IncrediblyLamePun
Conspiracy / int_f2877d9e	comment	Eichmann removing the guest book and burning the one page used is a clear indication from the beginning that the conference is being kept as off the books as possible. He also frequently motions the stenographer to pause his recording when the conversation veers into anything that could be clearly construed in a courtroom as conspiracy to murder.
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Conspiracy / int_f3da74ff	type	Creepy Crows
Conspiracy / int_f3da74ff	comment	Creepy Crows: Are heard at the beginning of the film. Crows commonly symbolize death, so the connection to the planned genocide is quite obvious.
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Conspiracy / int_f4fe270	type	Villainous Glutton
Conspiracy / int_f4fe270	comment	Villainous Glutton: 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.
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Conspiracy / int_f52ae5d8	type	Enemy Civil War
Conspiracy / int_f52ae5d8	comment	Enemy Civil War: Discussed. Mueller 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 Goering fight it out would be disastrous.
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Conspiracy / int_f6b30338	type	Murder Is the Best Solution
Conspiracy / int_f6b30338	comment	Murder Is the Best Solution: Since this is about the Wannsee Conference, where the "Operation Reinhard" phase of the Holocaust was authorised, the various German government agencies are noting with coldblooded earnestness why killing the Third Reich's "undesirables" truly is the best means of dealing with them. Only one of the men has any genuine moral problems with the mass murder — the rest are simply quibbling over the minutiae. Generalgouvernement's representatives point out epidemics and food shortage in the already overcrowded Polish ghettoes. While murder is not necessarily the best solution for them, they really do need to find some way of reducing the number of people if they want to avoid excessive budgetary strains and spreading infection to Germans. Invoked In-Universe when several delegates favour the sterilization plan. Eventually Heydrich loses patience and states bluntly that killing is the best method of wiping out the Jews and that's what they're going with; see Stating the Simple Solution below.
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Conspiracy / int_f740a274	type	Historical Beauty Update
Conspiracy / int_f740a274	comment	Historical Beauty Update: Varies from character to character. Some are a pretty good fit for their real life counterpart, but for instance the dashing Colin Firth plays the ugly-looking Wilhelm Stuckart. Inverted with Gerhard Klopfer, who was perfectly ordinary looking◊ in real life, but is played by an obese, unpleasant-looking actor◊.
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Conspiracy / int_f818b637	type	Dude, Where's My Respect?
Conspiracy / int_f818b637	comment	Dude, Where's My Respect?: Neumann works directly under Goering, Hitler's Number Two, 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 justified by the backdrop of the film: Goering 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 Truth in Television, 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.
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Conspiracy / int_f8e010ce	type	Evil Cannot Comprehend Good
Conspiracy / int_f8e010ce	comment	Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Kritzinger is only "good" in relative terms, but in any case it's zigzagged with the story he tells about the man whose life was defined by hatred. When Heydrich retells it, Eichmann thinks for a moment before saying he doesn't understand, playing this trope straight, while Heydrich is able to explain the point Kritzinger was making, averting it (however, the original telling was offscreen, so we don't actually know whether Heydrich understood immediately or if Kritzinger had to explain it, and it would be well within Heydrich's character to tell it as if he understood the point from the start.)
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Conspiracy / int_fc151e9d	type	Department of Redundancy Department
Conspiracy / int_fc151e9d	comment	Department of Redundancy Department: Otto Hofmann introduced himself as being from the Race and Settlement Department, then explains that they deal with race and settlement.
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Conspiracy / int_fcd9b657	type	Gallows Humor
Conspiracy / int_fcd9b657	comment	Gallows Humor: Klopfer bids Eichmann farewell with a "Shalom."
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Conspiracy / int_fe0330fb	type	Brick Joke
Conspiracy / int_fe0330fb	comment	Brick Joke: In the opening scene, of the background characters and staff preparing for the meeting, one waiter accidentally drops a tray of glassware and Eichmann instructs the head waiter to make sure that the dropper stays out his sight for the rest of the meeting. Towards the end of the film, Eichmann goes into the kitchen for a drink and medicine to calm his nerves and stomach after giving the details about gassing the Jews, and sternly remarks "I wasn't talking to you" when the dropper tries to offer him a glass of water.
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Conspiracy / int_ff7f34c5	type	Pet the Dog
Conspiracy / int_ff7f34c5	comment	Pet the Dog: When Eichmann's description of the gas chambers makes Hoffman sick to his stomach, Major Lange steps in to comfort him and even offer 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.
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Conspiracy / int_ffad4e9f	type	Shown Their Work
Conspiracy / int_ffad4e9f	comment	Shown Their Work: Very much so. The minutes of the actual conference, as well as Eichmann's Mossad interrogations, were used for the screenplay. Granted, much of the work had been done for them by the German predecessor, but the period details, especially the uniforms, are perfect, as is the small talk. Heydrich really was like that (and he really was late and really did turn up in a Fieseler Storch).
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Conspiracy / int_ffb79066	type	Chromosome Casting
Conspiracy / int_ffb79066	comment	Chromosome Casting: Justified, as all Real Life conference participants were men (Nazi government considered politics a purely masculine field). The only female character in the film is a maid who briefly appears.
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Conspiracy

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