The Conference an essential reminder of how low humanity can sink
★★★★
TGraeme Tuckett he phrase ‘‘the banality of evil’’ was coined a few decades after the events of the Wannsee Conference. Writer and philosopher Hannah Arendt used the term to describe her impression of Adolf Eichmann at his long delayed trial in 1961.
The evil that Arendt was describing surely had its most chilling, inhuman and, yes, banal origins at Wannsee.
The Wannsee Conference was a gathering of Hitler’s most trusted bureaucratic functionaries. It was held in Berlin in January 1942 to agree on a ‘‘final solution’’ to what the Nazi’s termed ’’’the Jewish problem’’.
Although the Jewish populations of Germany and occupied Europe had been systematically murdered, starved and imprisoned for years, the German leaders wanted to agree on methods, budgets and timetables, by which the deportation and extermination of an entire race of people – and millions of other ‘‘undesirables’’ – could be accomplished.
There were extensive preparations, but the actual meeting lasted only 90 minutes. In that time, the 15 men, including Eichmann and Reinhard Heydrich, had reached an agreement on which branches of the government and military should be responsible for the administrative details of the murders. Heydrich later described the atmosphere as ‘‘agreeable’’.
Only one copy of the minutes of the conference survived. It was found in 1947. And even though it is acknowledged that the wording used in the minutes is far more delicate and circumlocutory than what was actually said on the day, it is still a brutal reminder of the evil that men can do when there is the machinery of state to protect them from seeing the consequences of their decisions.
Veteran German TV director
Matti Geschonneck has taken what is known about that day and crafted a rigorous and engrossing drama. After a preamble to introduce the men there – and one woman, Ingeburg Werlemann, who took the transcript – the film unfolds in nearly real-time, as the men talk through what they see as the problems facing them, which are all logistical, never moral – and then agree on a course of action.
What is horrifying about The Conference is the seeming ordinariness of these men. No voices are raised, no disagreement is mentioned, the extermination of millions of women, men and children is referred to as a ‘‘process’’.
It is agreed that the death camps are preferable to any other form of murder because of their grim efficiency and because the men who run them will never have to interact with their victims.
The Conference is a moving and dismaying film. Knowing that today there are people who deny this ever happened, or would be happy for it to happen again, makes this film an even more essential reminder of how low humanity can sink, when democracy is subverted and governments are not held accountable.
In its quiet, terrifying way, The Conference is one of the best films I’ve seen this year.
The Conference is now screening in select cinemas.