Review of Conspiracy (2001)

I have watched many World War II and Holocaust films over the last decade. I have also visited two Holocaust museums in the past five years and read about the topic in many books. Much of this material is deeply disturbing and makes us think about the victims in sympathetic ways, feeling their helplessness. Holocaust films and museums leave a lasting impact, but they also keep us at a distance. We become introspective and look at this one point in history as an anomaly, a horrific event that happened 80 years ago, committed by people who seem almost alien. We tell ourselves that some monsters did it, and there is nothing we can do about it now.

This movie, Conspiracy (2001), was a very different experience.

It begins in a palatial mansion outside Berlin during the winter of 1942. A group of high-ranking Nazi officials gathers for a lunch conference. Before the meeting begins, they casually talk about the current state of the war, the food and alcohol being served, the agenda, and how long the meeting is expected to last. Like most of us who have experienced a professional workplace, the atmosphere feels completely normal. Then the meeting begins.

The agenda is bone-chilling: the growing Jewish population in German ghettos and the occupied territories. The officials discuss the strain these numbers place on the Nazi government’s resources, especially since neither Allied nor neutral countries are willing to accept more Jewish refugees. Through the conversations between members of the Nazi high command, we witness what is essentially a corporate brainstorming session, like any meeting many of us have participated in, to solve this “problem” as efficiently as possible.

The characters appear remarkably normal. They are seemingly polite, educated, and professional. They have egos and interpersonal conflicts. They discuss the logistics, legality, and industrial organization of the Final Solution, which we know from history was the Nazi government’s policy to systematically exterminate millions of Jews and other minorities across occupied Europe.

This “normalcy” is what makes the film so horrifying. The realities we have seen in Holocaust films and museums begin flashing through our minds, and suddenly we see these mundane, corporate Nazi officers for what they truly are: monsters. The horrors of the Holocaust did not emerge from wild-eyed fanatics shouting in the streets, but from educated men sitting around a conference table discussing logistics, efficiency, legal jurisdictions, and administrative procedures.

I highly recommend everyone to watch this film. There is virtually no violence or gore, which somehow makes it even more disturbing. Every actor is brilliant, perfectly capturing the unsettling duality of these men.

The end credits briefly explain what became of those involved in the conference after the war and the often-incomplete justice they faced. That final note left me thinking about how the film connects to the world we live in today. Similar atrocities continue to occur. News media and governments debate the perceived imperfections of victims, extend the benefit of the doubt to perpetrators, or frame mass violence as though administrative or strategic objectives can somehow justify it.

And yet, for most of us, life goes on.