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The Wannsee Conference [VHS]

Dietrich Mattausch (Actor), Harald Dietl (Actor), Heinz Schirk (Director) Rated: NR (Not Rated) Format: VHS Tape

27 customer reviews

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The Wannsee Conference [VHS]

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Product Details

Actors: Dietrich Mattausch, Harald Dietl, Jochen Busse, Peter Fitz, Dieter Groest
Directors: Heinz Schirk
Format: Color, NTSC
Language: German
Subtitles: English
Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Number of tapes: 1
Studio: Homevision
VHS Release Date: June 13, 2000
Run Time: 85 minutes
Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
ASIN: 6302919789
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #114,889 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

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Editorial Reviews

The horror of the holocaust began on January 20, 1942, when key representatives of the SS, the Nazi Party, and the government bureaucracy met secretly at a house in Wannsee. A quiet Berlin suburb, to discuss "The Final Solution." While they enjoyed a buffet lunch, brandy, and cigarettes, they discussed how they could systematically exterminate eleven million Jewish people. Director Heinz Schirk and writer Paul Mommertz use actual notes from the Wannsee Conference, along with letters written by Hermann Goering and Adolf Eichmann, and testimony by Eichmann at his 1961 trial in Israel, to re-create the shocking events of the fateful 85-minute meeting. Viewers become stunned witnesses to the cold-blooded, matter-of-fact manner in which the most hideous crime in history was set in motion.

Customer Reviews

(27)

4.6 out of 5 stars

5 star		19
4 star		6
3 star		2
2 star		0
1 star		0

See all 27 customer reviews

To which Heydrich replies, "Well, not everybody can reap the laurels, gentlemen."

Daniel J. Hamlow

What we as audience experience depends on how well we participated, and what we brought as human beings to the experience.

Dennis Littrell

The acting ensemble is flawless especially Dietrich Mattaush playing SS General Heydrich with arrogant brilliance.

Peter T. Wolf

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 62 people found the following review helpful

A gripping account of 20 January 1942

By Daniel J. Hamlow HALL OF FAME on July 26, 2002

Format: VHS Tape

Opening narration: "On Tuesday, 20 January 1942, at a house in the quiet Berlin suburb, Wannsee, a meeting was held. At the invitation of Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Security Police and Secret Service, fourteen key representatives of the Nazi Party, of the SS, and the government bureaucracy attended. The meeting lasted just ninety minutes. There was only one item on the agenda."
That item was implementation of the Endlosung, or Final Solution. Heinrich Himmler's right-hand man Heydrich, Adolf Eichmann, and Heinrich Muller were there to tell the bureaucrats that they were taking charge of the Jewish problem in their spheres of authority, while at the same time making it look like they weren't encroaching on their authority but helping them with the problem of getting rid of their Jews.
Of the people in the film, only Eichmann, Heydrich, Muller, Lange, Freisler, and Schongarth are identified. For the benefit of those wanting to match faces to names, I have the following list. At the one head of the table is the stenographer. Going to her left, we have the representatives of the SS:
SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer Adolf Eichmann, Reich Central Security Office, Dept. IV-B4
SS-Oberfuehrer Dr. Schongarth, General Government
SS-Gruppenfuehrer Heinrich Muller, RCSO, Dept. IV
Deputy Reichsprotector SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich, RCSO
SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Hoffman, Central Office for Race and Resettlement)
SS-Oberfuehrer Klopfer, Party Chancellery
SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Lange, Commando Squad Latvia
At the opposite end of the table, we have Ministerialdirektor Kritzinger of the Reich Chancellery. Going around his left, we have the bureaucrats:
Staatsekretar Neumann, Office of the Four Year Plan
Staatsekretar Dr.Read more ›

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41 of 44 people found the following review helpful

A shameful moment of history made much too real for comfort

By Linda Linguvic HALL OF FAMETOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on December 28, 2002

Format: VHS Tape

This 1984 German film gave me the chills. It's a dramatization of a scene that actually occurred on January 20, 1942, when the key representatives of the SS, the Nazi Party and various ministries met in the German suburb of Wannsee to give their approval of "the final solution". It was just one month after Pearl Harbor and America had entered the war, and the Third Reich was no longer quite as confident as they once were as Russia and England were vigorously resisting. The conference took only 85 minutes, which is the precise time of the film. I watched it all in horror and fascination, a fly on the wall and witness to what they was spoken of as an "organizational task unparalleled in history."
There were fourteen men there and one stenographer, an attractive woman who the leader flirted with throughout. Her notes of that day were later discovered in Nazi archives and much of the dialog was recreated verbatim. It all seemed like a business meeting, complete with one-upmanship and power struggles between the men. They ate fine food and drank cognac, made crude jokes and clashed with one another on minor issues. But they were all united in wanting the Jews, which by this time included Jews in all their conquered territories, exterminated.
Adolph Eichman is portrayed as a junior officer in charge of the complicated logistics of the operation. And the meeting is being held to engage the participants in a shared responsibility for it all, the result being pre-determined by higher officials, which nobody was about to question. The only exception is a middle-aged minor official from an interior ministry with a bad case of the flu, who brings up the issue of what to do with half-Jews and quibbles about their degree of racial purity.Read more ›

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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful

Horreur Véritée, or, My Dinner With Adolf

By The Sanity Inspector on February 16, 2001

Format: VHS Tape

A gauleiter flirts with the stenographer. Reinhard Heydrich trips over Adolf Eichmann's briefcase. A Nazi chieftain has to keep going outside to shut up his barking dog. Little touches like those add to the creepiness of this reconstruction of the Final Solution conference. Of course, elimination of the Jews had been in full swing for some time before this conference--it seems mainly to have been held to get everyone to accept Heydrich's leadership of the project. But this conference is just about the only "paper trail" the Nazis left in the actual execution of their plans for the Holocaust.
The recreation of the conference is amazing. It isn't especially realistic--it's obvious that everyone is acting, because everyone is so crisp and "on". But the fine ensemble acting, taken for itself, is impressive. The pacing never drags, though you do have to pay attention. Everything is unnervingly ordinary--the applause for a toast to the soldiers on the Eastern Front, guffaws at someone's joke, Eichmann fussing over his papers of statistics. Even the sudden sound of a plucked piano string at the end is startling, as the viewer realizes the theretofore absence of a music track. A grim masterpiece of historical recovery.

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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

One of the essential films to see to understand WW2

By brian komyathy VINE VOICE on June 17, 2005

Format: VHS Tape

"I declare that the proposal to equate half-Jews with Jews is absolutely acceptable." So argues one of the participants of the Wannsee conference near Berlin in January of 1942. "You find it acceptable that we reexamine every mixed race case?" another asks with scepticism; "Now, in the midst of war? That's a lot of work." He is reproached by his interlocutor with the admonition that "we must all make an extra effort." Then they discuss sterilization of all half-Jews before the Reich chairman of this to-be-kept-secret meeting declaritively announces his decision: "Throw them in with full Jews"---consigning another few hundred thousand human beings to the approximately 11 million figure bandied about at this conference as subject to extermination. The above is taken from "The Wannsee Conference," the 1984 German film concerning this ghastly meeting. Another film by the title of "Conspiracy" (made far more recently) mirrors this film, but pales in comparison; for the latter film is an English film starring Kenneth Branagh, who is not particularly believable as a German officer. Each film covers pretty much the same material, but "the Wannsee Conference" does so in far more detail, offering much greater detail about Nazi Germany's "Final Solution" throughout Europe. It also is arranged better. By that I mean that conference table scenes are broken up by ante-chamber discussions among the participants, whereas in the "Conspiracy" version we are basically offered a stage play---attendees arrive one by one & greet one another for what seems like a hundred "Heil Hitler" salutes over 10 minutes, followed by an hour of around the table give-and-take; or rather, one-upsmanship over who is the more inhumanely anti-semitic.Read more ›

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

Excellent and Disturbing

This is the original film in the correct language with English subtitles. Don't plan on eating dinner afterwards. It is absolutely chilling in its cold-hearted ruthlesness.

Published 28 days ago by GC

A Must See Film for All.

Everyone over the age of 14 should see this film, Is it possible that a group of intelligent, charming, polite and otherwise responsible people can gather together and decide to... Read more

Published 16 months ago by Bill Zolan

Very good - later remade as "Conspiracy"

Some years ago I saw "Conspiracy", an HBO-BBC TV movie about the Wannsee Conference, the secret meeting in a villa near Berlin in January 1942 where Hitler henchman Reinhard... Read more

Published on February 6, 2013 by Andres C. Salama

The Most Important Holocaust Film You Haven't Seen

Imagine listening to a secret conversation for 90 minutes. Fifteen individuals calmly - almost jokingly - converse in all seriousness how they intend to murder 11 million... Read more

Published on October 18, 2010 by Gerard D. Launay

Perfect !!

Why this has not made it to DVD is beyond me. Or even why it has not aired on TV that much.
This German film with English subtitles is simply outstanding. Read more

Published on August 23, 2009 by Peter T. Wolf

no packing

this cd is probably a copy, because there was nothing witten on it, and no cover.

Published on January 25, 2009 by Vinaver

Great VHS. Another DVD version is available.

This chilling VHS is fantastic. Those who enjoy it are directed to also watch the DVD "Conspiracy" for similar fantastic drama.

Published on November 23, 2006 by S. Geller

toe curling

in german with german actors, production ofcourse;this is the almost verbatim meeting held in the city of the title where the german elite explained just how they were going to... Read more

Published on August 13, 2006 by Thomas G. Kohls

Excellent documentary on important topic

The Wannsee Conference was a critical, 2-hour event during which high officials of the Third Reich planned their "Final Solution" for the "Jewish problem. Read more

Published on July 4, 2006 by Elizabeth T. Bogren

Holocaust Incorporated

The Wannsee conference was the official beginning to the organization of mass killings of Jews by the nazis. Read more

Published on March 9, 2006 by Buenoslibros.es

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