History Film / Conspiracy

* DeadlyEuphemism: 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, [[EuphemismBuster asking if mass killings were meant by "evacuation"]]. Heydrich simply responds that they were.

* BlackComedy: The debate over sterilization is sidetracked for a while by lurid jokes. Besides that, virtually every joke the Nazis make is in the context of making light of mass slaughter.

** None of the arguments and controversies shown in the film are present in the source material. 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.

** Stuckart is a [[DownplayedTrope downplayed example]]. He does object against the holocaust and brutality of his companions, but not on moral grounds (and indeed, he's a rampant anti-Semite), rather because the plan involves arbitrary violations of the Nuremburg Laws, which cannot be accepted by any means, and suggests sterilization as a more "lawful" approach.

** Rudolf Lange is an SS officer who [[ShellShockedVeteran has personally seen the horrors of war in the east]]. He actively hates the Jews he has ordered to be killed but even he is disturbed by the ad hoc mass murders in Latvia. He gets pissed off at Heydrich for the casual way in which he couches the ensuing genocide with euphemisms and has become quite introspective about his station.

* '''Ewan Stewart''' as '''Georg Leibbrant''': Part of the occupying administration for the Eastern Territories, Liebbrant is concerned for the situation the Eastern territories and for the connection between Communism and Judaism. After the war, he was interned, but released without trial in 1950. He emigrated to the USA that year, but later returned to Germany, dying in 1982 in Bonn.

* '''Jonathon Coy''' as '''Erich Neumann''': Director of the Office of the Four Year Plan, Neumann is subordinate to Hermann Goering. He was interned by the Allies in 1945, but released in 1948 on the grounds of poor health. He died in 1951.
* '''Brendan Coyle''' as '''Heinrich Mueller''': Chief of the Gestapo. He walked out of the Fuehrerbunker on May 1, 1945 and was never seen again, dead or alive.

** 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 [[TheSociopath 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.

* MurderIsTheBestSolution: 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.

-->'''Kritzinger:''' That we have undertaken to systematically annihilate all the Jews in Europe? That possibility has personally been denied to me by the [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler Fuhrer]]!

* PunchClockVillain: 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.

* TheSocialDarwinist: 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". Or [[GeniusBonus he would be]]. [[EvilutionaryBiologist Evolution doesn't work that way]].
* TheSociopath: 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.

-->'''Neumann:''' Neumann, director of the Four-Year-Plan. Whom may I be speaking to?
-->'''Klopfer:''' I speak for Martin Bormann, of the Thousand-Year-Plan.

* VillainProtagonist: Every character in this film is a high-ranking official of a totalitarian regime engaging in wars of conquest and extermination, while their objective is to organize a continental genocide.

* WickedCultured: Played straight with Heydrich: he finds a record of Music/FranzSchubert's C Major Sextet 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.

* IdTellYouButThenIdHaveToKillYou: 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."

Starring an EnsembleCast, including Creator/KennethBranagh, Creator/ColinFirth and Stanley Tucci, the film follows SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) Adolf Eichmann as he organizes the meeting itself. Represented are the [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters 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'.

* StatingTheSimpleSolution: After getting fed up of Stuckart's very vocal advocation of mass sterilisation, [[ShutUpKirk Heydrich puts him back in his place]]:

Starring an EnsembleCast, including Creator/KennethBranagh, Creator/ColinFirth and Stanley Tucci, the film follows SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) Adolf Eichmann as he organizes the meeting itself. Represented are the [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters Security Police (under Heydrich), Criminal Police, Regional Security Chief for the ''Generalgouvernment'', a representative of Hans Frank's ''Generalgouvernment'', 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'.

Though the meeting is phrased as a discussion panel for the formulation of policy, 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 ''Generalgouvernment'' will be deported to extermination facilities (currently under construction) in the ''Generalgouvernment'' staffed by local police forces (under the command of the SS District Chiefs). Those who argue against this policy, either because [[EvenEvilHasStandards they feel the mass execution of all 'unskilled' Jews goes too far]] or [[PragmaticVillainy 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 ''Generalgouvernment'', 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.

* '''Ben Daniels''' as '''Dr. Josef Bühler''': State Secretary of Hans Frank's ''Generalgouvernment'' (of Poland). He testified against Hans Frank during the Nürnberg trials and was later extradited to Poland, tried, and hanged in 1948.

* '''Pete Sullivan''' as '''Karl Eberhard Schoengarth''': A young, arrogant and careerist SD Officer assigned to the ''Generalgouvernment''. He was captured by the Allies, charged with the murder of a downed Allied airman and hanged by the British in 1945.

* InterserviceRivalry: Much of the tension at the table is provided by the rivalry between the SS, the Party Chancellery, the ''Generalgouvernment'', the Interior and Justice Ministries and the Office of the Four Year Plan. It's notable that in RealLife, UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler 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.

** Unmentioned is the ''Generalgouvernment'''s food shortage. While murder is not necessarily the ''best'' solution for them, they really do need to find some way of reducing the number of mouths they have to feed if they want to avoid rebellion.

Starring an EnsembleCast, including Creator/KennethBranagh, Creator/ColinFirth and Stanley Tucci, the film follows SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) Adolf Eichmann as he organizes the meeting itself. Represented are the [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters Security Police (under Heydrich), Criminal Police, Regional Security Chief for the Generalgovernment, a representative of Hans Frank's Generalgovernment, 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'.

Though the meeting is phrased as a discussion panel for the formulation of policy, 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 Generalgovernment will be deported to extermination facilities (currently under construction) in the Generalgovernment staffed by local police forces (under the command of the SS District Chiefs). Those who argue against this policy, either because [[EvenEvilHasStandards they feel the mass execution of all 'unskilled' Jews goes too far]] or [[PragmaticVillainy 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 Generalgovernment, 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.

* '''Ben Daniels''' as '''Dr. Josef Bühler''': State Secretary of Hans Frank's Generalgovernment (of Poland). He testified against Hans Frank during the Nürnberg trials and was later extradited to Poland, tried, and hanged in 1948.

* '''Pete Sullivan''' as '''Karl Eberhard Schoengarth''': A young, arrogant and careerist SD Officer assigned to the Generalgovernment of Poland. He was captured by the Allies, charged with the murder of a downed Allied airman and hanged by the British in 1945.

* ChromosomeCasting: The only female character in the film is a maid who briefly appears. The rest are all men, as the Nazi government was quite reactionary when it came to gender issues and they considered politics a purely masculine field.

* InterserviceRivalry: Much of the tension at the table is provided by the rivalry between the SS, the Party Chancellery, the General Government, the Interior and Justice Ministries and the Office of the Four Year Plan. It's notable that in RealLife, UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler 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.

** Unmentioned is the Generalgovernment's food shortage. While murder is not necessarily the ''best'' solution for them, they really do need to find some way of reducing the number of mouths they have to feed if they want to avoid rebellion.

* BlondGuysAreEvil: Heydrich is a platinum blond-haired man who personifies the Nazi ideal of the Aryan man; fit, warlike, cruel, [[AmbitionIsEvil ambitious]], manipulative, and racially arrogant in the extreme.

Starring an EnsembleCast, including Creator/KennethBranagh, Creator/ColinFirth and Stanley Tucci, the film follows SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) Adolf Eichmann as he organizes the meeting itself. Represented are the [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters Security Police (under Heydrich), Criminal Police, Regional Security Chief for the Generalgouvernment, a representative of Hans Frank's Generalgouvernment, 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'.

Though the meeting is phrased as a discussion panel for the formulation of policy, 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 Generalgouvernment will be deported to extermination facilities (currently under construction) in the Generalgouvernment staffed by local police forces (under the command of the SS District Chiefs). Those who argue against this policy, either because [[EvenEvilHasStandards they feel the mass execution of all 'unskilled' Jews goes too far]] or [[PragmaticVillainy 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 Generalgouvernment, 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.

* '''Brian Pettifer''' as '''Alfred Meyer''': A bespectacled, shrewish man, Meyer respresents Alfred Rosenberg's Reich Ministry for the occupied Eastern Territories. He does not care what is done about the Jews, as long as it is done ''fast'' due to the challenge of keeping the ghettos pacified and free of disease (which he fears may spread to the ''Volkdeutsch''). He committed suicide in 1945 when it became apparent that Germany was about to lose the war.

* '''Ben Daniels''' as '''Dr. Josef Bühler''': State Secretary of Hans Frank's Generalgouvernement (of Poland). He testified against Hans Frank during the Nürnberg trials and was later extradited to Poland, tried, and hanged in 1948.

* '''Pete Sullivan''' as '''Karl Eberhard Schoengarth''': A young, arrogant and careerist SD Officer assigned to the General Goverment of Poland. He was captured by the Allies, charged with the murder of a downed Allied airman and hanged by the British in 1945.

** Unmentioned is the Generalgouvernement's food shortage. While murder is not necessarily the ''best'' solution for them, they really do need to find some way of reducing the number of mouths they have to feed if they want to avoid rebellion.

* MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate: As well as lawyers there are also several doctors at the conference, and the effects of medical experiments involving euthanasia of mental patients are also mentioned.

* None of the arguments and controversies shown in the film are present in the source material. 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 CorruptCorporateExecutive 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.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: 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 CorruptCorporateExecutive 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.

* MinionWithAnFInEvil: Deconstructed by Heydrich to Kritzinger
-->"Well then, this is the moment to be... practical, until such time as Germany can afford your philosophy, which is what? Hound them, impoverish them, exploit them, imprison them - just do not ''kill'' them, and you are God's noblest of men. I find that, uh, truly remarkable."

* ManipulativeBastard: 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 to enact the Holocaust, but ''informing'' the various departments of what their role in the already decided-on genocide will be. At most, Heydrich is going to give 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 will brush it off by earnestly and politely saying that he will take questions in a moment, but hasn't finished what he's saying. After a couple of rounds of his, it gradually 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 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.

* FalseReassurance: 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 the response from Reinhardt Heydrich, the chairman of the meeting, is to simply reply "and it will continue to be." Kritzinger comes to the dawning realization that Heydrich is not saying there will be no extermination, but that Hitler will instead continue to lie about it for plausible deniability.

* ShownTheirWork: 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 Fiesler Storch).

* GreaterScopeVillain: The unseen UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler. 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.

* DudeWheresMyRespect: Neumann works directly under Goering, Hitler's NumberTwo, 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 [[JustifiedTrope 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.

''Conspiracy'' is a 2001 Creator/{{HBO}} / [[Creator/TheBBC BBC]] TV film that dramatizes the story of the 1942 Wannsee Conference, one of several meetings of [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII German civil and party officials which authorised]] [[FinalSolution the Security Police department of the SS to organize the deportation of Jews from and to anywhere it wished as part of "the Final Solution of the Jewish Question"]] [[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) [[/note]] It is an English-language adaptation of ''Die Wannseekonferenz'', a German film that tackled the same subject matter; both films are shot in RealTime 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.

* '''Stanley Tucci''' as '''Adolf Eichmann''': Immediate subordinate to Heydrich, and head of the SS Office for Jewish Affairs, Eichmann is the man tasked with arranging the meeting, and the final solution that arises from it. Eichmann takes the role of a dispassionate observer, frequently chiming in on Heydrich's side, and generally as a man with no purpose beyond ideology. He later became known as the "architect of the Holocaust". After the war, he fled to Argentina, where he was kidnapped by Mossad and taken to Israel, where he became the only man ever put to death by that country.

* BlackAndBlackMorality: All named characters, including those who argue most stenuously against the Final Solution, were Nazi officials who had implemented and carried out systematic persecution of Jewish peoples, including several war crimes that had already taken place before it became official policy.

** 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 RealLife Kritzinger tried to resign immediately after the conference, although historians are conflicted on whether it was because he truly felt the Final Solution was morally wrong or if the timing was just a coincidence.

* FalseReassurance: Kritzinger believes that the 'Final Solution to the Jewish Problem' 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 the response from Reinhardt Heydrich, the chairman of the meeting, is to simply reply "and it will continue to be." Kritzinger comes to the dawning realization that Heydrich is not saying there will be no extermination, but that Hitler will instead continue to lie about it for plausible deniability.

* MurderIsTheBestSolution: Since this is about the Wannsee Conference where the Final Solution phase of the Holocaust was devised, the Nazis are discussing with coldblooded earnestness why killing the Third Reich's "undesirables" 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 discussing ''how best to organize it''.
** Invoked InUniverse when several delegates favour the sterilization plan. Eventually Heydrich loses patience and states bluntly that killing is the most reliable method of wiping out the Jews and that's what they're going with; see StatingTheSimpleSolution below.

** Another one in the EvilVersusEvil 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 acknowledges that exterminating the Jews is abjectly wrong. Heydrich eventually deconstructs Kritzinger's attempt at EvenEvilHasStandards, because he knowingly consented to sterilizing and enslaving them before. Heydrich is an evil mass murderer, but [[AtLeastIAdmitIt 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.

* ShameIfSomethingHappened: 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 the Final Solution by off-handedly mentioning how he would hate for the bullies in the SS to take notice of his obstruction.

* ThreatBackfire: When Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart explains, almost ranting, why the Final Solution policies are a bad idea ([[PragmaticVillainy 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."

* '''Ben Daniels''' as '''Dr. Josef Bühler''': State Secretary of Hans Frank's Generalgouvernement (of Poland). He testified against Hans Frank during the Nurember trials and was later extradited to Poland, tried, and hanged in 1948.

* '''Brian Pettifer''' as '''Alfred Meyer''': A bespectacled, shrewish man, Meyer is a Nazi ''Gauleiter'' in charge of the General Government (a section of Poland that formed a subdivision to the Reich) and the expulsion of Jews and ethnic Poles from "German" territory. He does not care what is done about the Jews, as long as it is done ''fast'', due to the challenge of keeping the ghettos pacified and free of disease (which he fears may spread to the ''volkdeutsch''). He committed suicide in 1945 when it became apparent that Germany was about to lose the war.

* '''Ben Daniels''' as '''Josef Buehler''': State Secretary of the General Goverment. After the war, he was extradited to Poland and hanged in 1948.