The Wannsee Conference (film)

The Wannsee Conference
Directed by	Heinz Schirk
Produced by	Siegfried B. Glökler
Written by	Paul Mommertz
Based on	Wannsee Conference
Edited by	Ulla Möllinger
Production company	Infafilm GmbH Manfred Korytowski Munich Austrian Television-O.R.F. Bavarian Broadcasting Corp.
Release dates	1984
Running time	85 minutes (Germany) 87 minutes (United States)
Country	Austria West Germany
Language	German

The Wannsee Conference (German: Die Wannseekonferenz) is a 1984 German TV movie portraying the events of the Wannsee Conference, held in Berlin in January 1942. The script is derived from the minutes of the meeting.^[1] 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.^[2]

The same events were later depicted in the 2001 English-language film Conspiracy.

Cast

The cast of the 15 participants of the conference is as follows:

• Dietrich Mattausch as SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich: Chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) and Deputy Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia.
• Gerd Böckmann as SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann: Head of RSHA IV B4.
• Peter Fitz as Dr Wilhelm Stuckart: State Secretary, Reich Ministry for the Interior.
• Günter Spörrle as SS-Oberführer Dr Gerhard Klopfer: State Secretary, Party Chancellery.
• Hans-Werner Bussinger as Martin Luther: Undersecretary and SS liaison, Foreign Ministry.
• Franz Rudnick as Ministerialdirektor Dr Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger: Deputy Head, Reich Chancellery.
• Jochen Busse as Dr Georg Leibbrandt: Head of Political Department, Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories.
• Harald Dietl as Gauleiter Dr Alfred Meyer: Deputy Reich Minister, Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories.
• Robert Atzorn as SS-Gruppenführer Otto Hofmann: Chief of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office.
• Dieter Groest as SS-Sturmbannführer Erich Neumann: Director, Office of the Four Year Plan.
• Friedrich Georg Beckhaus as SS-Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller: Chief of RSHA Department IV (the Gestapo).
• Reinhard Glemnitz as Dr Josef Bühler: State Secretary for the General Government of occupied Poland.
• Martin Lüttge as SS-Sturmbannführer Dr Rudolf Lange: Commander of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) in Latvia.
• Rainer Steffen as Dr Roland Freisler: State Secretary, Reich Ministry of Justice.
• Gerd Rigauer as SS-Oberführer Dr Karl Eberhard Schöngarth: SD officer assigned to the General Government.
• Anita Mally, as the secretary

External links

• The Wannsee Conference at the Internet Movie Database

References

1. Vincent Canby (November 18, 1987). "Film: Holocaust's birth, 'Wannsee Conference'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 22, 2013.
2. Wolfgram, Mark (2011). "Getting History Right": East and West German Collective Memories of the Holocaust and War. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 98. ISBN 9781611480061.