Characters featured in Conspiracy.
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Reinhard Heydrich
Played by: Kenneth Branagh
The SS Chief of Reich Security (Main Office) and Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. He has ultimate oversight over all matters relating to the Jewish question, and is the immediate subordinate to Heinrich Himmler. A ruthless and intelligent man, he spends much of the film threatening, flattering and cajoling to bring the ministries into line. He was killed by British-trained Czech commandos with an anti-tank grenade which destroyed his car in 1942.
Tropes:
- At Least I Admit It: Unlike others who are reluctant to discuss what they're doing in open terms and prefer to think of themselves as simply soldiers following orders or put more acceptable spins on their actions, Heydrich has no issue admitting that he is leading a genocide in which millions of people, including the elderly, the disabled and women and children, will be mercilessly slaughtered in horrifying ways and in massive numbers.
- Big Bad: He's the most high-ranking and powerful Nazi in the film, and directs every step of the Holocaust and the conference.
- The Dragon: Technically speaking, Heydrich is this to Big Bad Heinrich Himmler (who is, in turn, The Dragon to Greater-Scope Villain Adolf Hitler). For the purposes of the film, however, Heydrich is pretty much Big Bad on his own.
- Dramatic Irony: At one point, Heydrich boasts that "the secret of life is to live dangerously". This habit comes to bite him in the backside big time, as his habit of driving through Prague in an open and unarmoured car greatly helps in his assassination.
- The Dreaded: Everyone, even other high ranking officials, are frightened of Heydrich as they know he will have no issue whatsoever having them eliminated if they stand in his way. Even the arrogant and vain Klopfer, who himself is a very powerful man who can ruin everyone else in the room with one phone call and whom Heydrich pretends to humor out of caution, dares not repeat his insults to Heydrich's face. The only exceptions are Eichmann and Mueller, his direct associates.
- Establishing Character Moment: 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 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. Also, the very first scene of the movie is him flying into Wannsee in his plane, capturing his narcissism and flair for the dramatic. It also says something that Eichmann, who has already been established as ruthless in his own right (see below) and has been simply a polite host to the other attendees, displays absolute deference to Heydrich from the moment he walks in.
- Faux Affably Evil: Heydrich knows how to switch on the charm and barely raises his voice throughout the movie. It quickly becomes clear that that's largely because he doesn't have to.
- Lack of Empathy: Heydrich is completely without empathy of any sort for the millions whose deaths he is helping to engineer and sees their mass slaughter as no different than any other part of his role as a soldier. If wiping out an entire race is what Heydrich has to do for his own advancement, he will do it without blinking.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Heydrich is the most evil Nazi in the film and the biggest instigator of the genocide, and also the first to die after the conference. Within several months he is assassinated by Czech operatives sent by the British, before he even sees the culmination of his plan. After his death it was named Operation Reinhard in his honour.
- Manipulative Bastard: 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 or not to enact the mass killing of Jews, but a briefing in which the various departments are being told what their role in the already decided-on genocide will be. At most, Heydrich gives 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 earnestly and politely brushes it off by saying that he will take questions in a moment, but hasn't quite finished what he's saying. After a couple of rounds of this, it 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 of this is 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.
- Pet the Dog: Heydrich, of all people, stops his subordinate Müller from taunting Kritzinger further.Heydrich: Leave him. His Führer lied to him. I think he got the message.
- The Social Darwinist: 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".
- The Sociopath: 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.
- Smug Snake: Starts off seemingly affable, but whenever anybody tries to interrupt or disagree with him he replies in a smarmy, patronizing tone that makes it clear he doesn't give a toss about taking anyone else there seriously.
- Straight Edge Evil: Heydrich is obviously irritated by the lecherousness of the other attendees when they talk about sterilization and does not touch the drink or the cigars until the conference is finished.
- Villain Has a Point: He's unquestionably a monster but he accurately calls out the hypocrisy and weakness of others who wish to distance themselves from the reality of what they're about to do or suddenly claim moral opposition after going along with measures to discriminate against Jews, take away their property, imprison them or sterilize them but believe not wanting to directly kill them makes them good.
- Villain Protagonist: He's one of the architects of the Holocaust, and, alongside Eichmann, one of the main forces that pushes the film's plot forward.
Adolf Eichmann
Played by: Stanley Tucci
Heydrich's "special expert" (directly subordinate to Müller, but in practice Heydrich tended to work with Eichmann over his head) and head of the SS Office for Jewish Affairs, Eichmann is the man tasked with arranging the meeting, and the operations which arise 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.
Tropes:
- Argentina Is Nazi-Land: He flees to Argentina after the war before he is captured by the Israeli Mossad and tried and executed for his crimes.
- Berserk Button: Eichmann is incredibly angry when the SS drivers are found having a snowball fight outside, especially when one of them tries to excuse himself by saying "it just happened". Eichmann actually strikes the man across the face and insists that nothing ever "just happens" when they are in uniform, and threatens to have them sent to the Russian front.
- Establishing Character Moment: Eichmann has one when he forces the terrified waiter who broke the plates to pay for the damage, then asking the butler if they have enough. Meticulous and terrifying.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Eichmann, despite being the biggest supporter of the genocide after Heydrich, becomes uncomfortable when describing the extermination process used in the gas chambers. Heydrich later relates that Eichmann fainted when he saw the results first-hand, which Eichmann quickly denies.
- Ignored Epiphany: Violently sick upon seeing the murder of Jews firsthand, he simply resolves to do the killings from behind a desk instead of in person.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Catches up with him in the epilogue text. Abducted from Argentina by the Israeli Mossad and flown to face trial in Jerusalem, Adolf Eichmann became the only man ever executed by the state of Israel.
- Punch-Clock Villain: The most famous in history. As in line with the man who gave birth to the phrase "banality of evil", he comes off as a mildly competent middle-manager who takes care of the intricacies of Heydrich's plan. While he's clearly an anti-Semite he doesn't have the fanatical devotion Heydrich has and discusses the murder of millions like they're planning next quarter's advertising budget.
- Straight Edge Evil: Nazi official Eichmann is a very composed man who doesn't indulge in the food or cigars prepared for the attendees at the villa and is reluctant to drink on duty until Heydrich orders him to.
- Villain Protagonist: He's one of the architects of the Holocaust, and, alongside Heydrich, one of the main forces that pushes the film's plot forward.
Wilhelm Stuckart
Played by: Colin Firth
State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of the Interior under Wilhelm Frick, Stuckart was author of the Nuremberg Laws, which codified the government's anti-semitic stance. Argues for avoiding distress to German couples and prefers the sterilization and "natural extinction" of Jews to Heydrich's policy of extermination. He survived the war, was released from prison in 1949 and died in a car accident (believed by some to have been Mossad-induced) in 1953.
Tropes:
- Anti-Villain: Stuckart is a downplayed example. He does object to the Holocaust and brutality of his companions, but not on moral grounds. Indeed, he's an unapologetic anti-Semite. He insteads object to it because the plan involves arbitrary violations of the Nuremburg Laws (co-written by himself), which cannot be accepted by any means, and suggests sterilization as a more "lawful" approach. He also thinks the approach of mass extermination will generate global outrage, whereas a legal method of sterilization will fly below the radar.
- Berserk Button: He loses his composure completely when Klopfer accuses him of being sympathetic to the Jews, going on a loud angry rant on how he sees them as a real threat instead of a pest problem like most Nazis.
- Deadpan Snarker: Stuckart, who has been consistently ignored and undermined throughout the entire meeting, when asked on his final opinion/approval/collaboration, simply says, with a completely straight face, that his enthusiasm is boundless.
- Don't Create a Martyr: Stuckart argues against this, insisting that a wholesale genocide of Jews like Heydrich is proposing will generate international outrage, while a more carefully done, and more importantly, legally correct sterilisation program is less likely to have the same reaction.Wilhelm Stuckart: Deal with the reality of the Jew and the world will applaud us. Treat them as imaginary phantoms, evil inhuman fantasies, and the world would have justified contempt for us! To kill them casually without regard for the law martyrs them, which will be their victory! Sterilization recognizes them as a part of our species but prevents them from being a part of our race. They'll disappear soon enough. And we will have acted in defense of our race and of our species and by the law!
- Establishing Character Moment: Stuckart and Kritzinger get one with their first conversation together. They believe in the supremacy of law and detest the SS for disregarding all of it to get more power by heading a genocide.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Dr. Stuckart offers a different style of standard. Throughout the film he is the most vocal and aggressive opponent of the genocide, but he claims it is because the proposed plans are haphazard and unworkable and opposed to the laws of Germany as well as, basically, a PR nightmare. He himself launches into an anti-Semitic diatribe explaining the flaws of the Jews, but then continues to protest their extermination.
- Freudian Slip: Although Stuckart claims his position isn't based on "pride of authorship", he at one point refers to the Nuremberg Laws as "my" before correcting himself to "the".
- Historical Villain Downgrade: Stuckart may or may not have pushed for sterilization as a "humanitarian" alternative to the Endloesung. The film plays with this by giving him, as part of his protestations against extermination, a virulent anti-Semitic rant, and his protests are clearly based on legalistic and foreign relations grounds more than any kind of moral objection to mass murder. One gets the impression he'd be quite happy for the extermination process to occur so long as they were operating according to his Nuremberg Laws.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Stuckart, author of the vehemently antisemitic Nuremberg Laws, died in 1953 in a car accident that is strongly believed to have been a Mossad-arranged assassination.
- A Lighter Shade of Black: He opposes the genocide, though his objection is more on legal grounds than moral ones. His own solution to the Jewish "problem" involves sterilizing them all and letting them expire within a generation, which is still unbelievably abhorrent, but marginally less bad than forcing them into gas chambers.
- Threat Backfire: When Stuckart gives a lengthy and angry explanation why Operation Reinhard is a bad idea (because of all the German laws they are violating and the bureaucratic mess they would create), Dr. Gerhard Klopfer, having been directly insulted numerous times over the course of said explanation, menacingly hisses "I'll remember you." Stuckart responds "You should. I'm very well known."
Gerhard Klopfer
Played by: Ian McNeice
A fat, loud, arrogant and rude member of the Nazi Party, he, as he constantly reminds everyone, speaks for Martin Bormann, the party chancellor. He was released after the war due to lack of evidence, becoming a tax advisor in Ulm. He died in 1987, making him the last surviving attendee of the conference.
Tropes:
- Beware the Silly Ones: He barely takes the proceedings seriously, mostly issuing crude jokes and sarcastic interjections. This causes Stuckart to immediately dismiss Klopfer when the latter threatens him, but Heydrich later warns Stuckart that it would be potentially fatal to underestimate the man. Klopfer is the deputy to Martin Bormann, one of the most feared men in the Reich.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Klopfer is very clearly under the impression that he is the most important man at the conference, and behaves as such, to everyone else's annoyance. Played with in that while the other attendees do respect his position, they regard Klopfer as — in Heydrich's words — as a "strutting, imbecilic, porcine prick." At the same time, Heydrich knows it's unwise to confront Klopfer openly when the latter warns the SS not to usurp power from the Nazi Party, diplomatically promising him that "everyone's opinion will be considered" instead of trying to flex on Klopfer.
- Even Evil Has Standards: While not having any moral objection or qualm about the planned genocide, and generally acting like the biggest and most disgusting scumbag in a room full of supremely evil Nazis, even Klopfer is shocked for a moment over just how many Jews will be murdered every day as the plans progress. He stops chewing his food and freezes completely motionless.
- Establishing Character Moment: Klopfer barges into the mansion like a pompous blowhard, demands to see Eichmann so he can explain why his colleagues had to momentarily miss his presence. As soon that bit of formal business is over with, the first thing he asks Eichmann is where the beer is. He is then seen guzzling sausages and belittling Neumann in very rude terms.
- Fat Bastard: He's overweight and among the vilest Nazis in the film.
- Gallows Humor: Bids Eichmann farewell as he departs with a "Shalom".
- Hate Sink: Klopfer tops the rest of his genocidal compatriots in being utterly repulsive. He's morbidly obese, gluttonous, ugly, rude, an open pervert, even more simple-mindedly racist than the others, and cowardly (he makes jokes about Heydrich's possible Jewish ancestry behind his back but dares not to say it to his face when dared to do so by Müller).
- Historical Ugliness Update: The real Klopfer
wasn't fat at all. That was a film addition to make him even more loathsome. - Historical Villain Upgrade: Whilst the real Gerhard Klopfer was just as evil and racist as the one portrayed in the film, he was neither a glutton nor lecherous. Informations are rather sparse, but he seemed to be a rather polite and calm person in real life, as well. He is intended to represent the Party side of the government and the political bureaucrats who are reaping the benefits without getting their own hands dirty like the soldiers or even doing anything useful for the nation on a day to day basis like the State side of the government.
- Jerkass: One of the things that makes Dr. Klopfer a Hate Sink in addition to an evil Nazi is his obnoxious, rude demeanor.
- Jerkass Has a Point: With all the buffoonery and pomposity, Klopfer is one of the most important people in the room. He is a deputy of Martin Bormann, head of the Party Chancellery who de facto controls all domestic matters in the Reich, and one of two — with Hellmuth Friedrichs — people responsible for promotions and demotions within the Party. Klopfer could get most people at the conference in serious trouble if he wanted to.
- Karma Houdini: Unlike most of the attendees, Klopfer never served any time in prison for his role in the Holocaust.
- Villainous Glutton: Dr. Klopfer is an obnoxious, obese Nazi who indulges himself with the food and other niceties prepared for the attendees in the villa. He's still mowing down leftovers when the other Nazis have already departed.
Martin Luther
Played by: Kevin McNally
Undersecretary at the Nazi Foreign Office. Violently anti-semitic, he speaks for Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. After a failed attempt to usurp his boss, he was sent to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, and died of a heart attack shortly after its liberation by the Red Army in 1945.
Tropes:
- Armchair Military: Luther says he'd be perfectly willing to serve in an SS death squad, entirely missing the point that the reason why they're industrialising the process of mass murder is that personally executing masses of civilians is proving to be bad for the German soldiers' morale. He seems to be unable to understand why anyone could possibly get sick of shooting defenceless civilians over and over again, something he clearly has no first-hand experience with.
- "Ass" in Ambassador: Martin Luther is the Undersecretary of the Foreign Ministry, representing Joachim von Ribbentrop at the conference. He's almost as obnoxious as Klopfer, participates in a bunch of lurid jokes about forced sterilization and proudly declares that he would be willing to sign up for Major Lange's death squad if they needed someone to shoot women and children.
- Establishing Character Moment: Luther's first act on reaching the conference is to track down Eichmann (all but ignoring the other attendees, who are making small talk) and hand him a "memorandum of recommendations", with a second copy for Heydrich. Eichmann is visibly annoyed, but politely brushes him off.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Luther looks like a refined gentleman with his suit and glasses, but in fact he's immensely arrogant, easily cowed and submissive, and wholly supportive of the field executions of unarmed civilians.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Luther would himself ultimately get sent to a concentration camp. He survived long enough to be freed by the Red Army when they liberated the camp, only to immediately die of heart failure.
- Named After Somebody Famous: He has no relation to the Protestant reformer. Ironically, the original Luther became a staunch anti-Semite himself in his later years.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The only reason we have any idea what happened during the conference is because Martin Luther neglected to destroy his notes as instructed.
- Professional Butt-Kisser: Martin Luther fits the mold perfectly, shamelessly kissing up to Eichmann and Heydrich. It's telling that he can't remember Neumann's name or job title, but can remember that he works under Reichmarshall Göring. He's also seen rushing to Heydrich's side with a lighter during the break to ask him to keep in touch, and leaving as soon as he gets an agreement.
- The Starscream: He is sacked and sent to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp after conspiring against his boss, Joachim von Ribbentrop.
Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger
Played by: David Threlfall
The Deputy Head of the Reich Chancellery under Hans Lammers. Kritzinger shares Stuckart's opposition to outright extermination, and is the only participants who come close to making a moral objection. He attempted to resign after the Conference, but this was refused on unknown grounds. After the war, he declared himself ashamed of what he had done, and was released from Allied custody. He died in 1947.
Tropes:
- Anti-Villain: Dr. Kritzinger is the only Nazi official present at the conference who feels that the wholesale extermination of the Jews is wrong. He feels legitimately betrayed when he figures out that he has been kept in the dark with false promises that they would be spared by the regime. Heydrich deconstructs this for Kritzinger by noting that he's only barely better than the rest of them because he never had any problems with terrorizing, enslaving and sterilizing the Jewish populations in Europe so long as they weren't immediately being killed.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Inverted. Kritzinger tries to downplay his own power and influence to appear like a non-obstacle, but Heydrich doesn't buy it for a moment. He is well aware that Kritzinger wields a lot of legal and practical power as the deputy of the chief ministry of the Reich government and one of the few men present with a direct line to Hitler himself.
- Even Evil Has Standards: He 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 Real Life Kritzinger tried to resign shortly after the conference, although historians are conflicted on whether it was because he truly felt the Operation Reinhard was morally wrong or if the timing was just a coincidence. Be that as it may, his resignation was not accepted and he remained in his position until the very end of the war.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- Stuckart and Kritzinger get one with their first conversation together. They believe in the supremacy of law and detest the SS for disregarding all of it to get more power by heading a genocide.
- Kritzinger has another when he refuses to participate in the rumor-mongering about the situation in Moscow, stating bluntly that the German forces are stalled for the winter.Kritzinger: It is time to face reality.
- Historical Villain Downgrade: Kritzinger did testify to being ashamed of the actions of the Nazis during the Nuremberg trials, but there's no indication in history that he was as strongly opposed to the Final Solution as he is in the film. The film also glosses over the fact that he had been a Nazi since the 1930s, and had faithfully executed the government's antisemitic policies up to that point. Though it is at least nodded at; in their private conversation, Heydrich notes the hypocrisy in Kritzinger supporting every mistreatment of the Jews up to, but not including, actually killing them.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Despite his anti-Semitism he believes that killing all the Jews goes too far, but when he realizes that he's the only man at the conference to offer any meaningful objection, he resigns himself to the situation. Heydrich later makes it clear that he wants more than meek compliance from Kritzinger and expects his unconditional support to the SS for implementing the "solution". Kritzinger ultimately gives him that support, although he's clearly unhappy about it.
- A Lighter Shade of Black: While still a proud servant of the Führer who's glad to oppress the Jewish people, he's the only one appalled by the concept of complete extermination.
- Minion with an F in Evil: Deconstructed to Kritzinger by Heydrich, a man with an A in evil.Heydrich: 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.
- Only Sane Man: An incredibly depressing one. He tries to make a moral stand while everyone else is concerned with bureaucracy or power-play, but he's shot down and eventually goes along with it after realizing the futility of objecting. It is summed up by this exchange at the end of the film:Kritzinger: It is night in Moscow already. Soon it will be dark here. Do you think any of us will live to see the daytime?
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: David Threlfall is one of the few actors who attempts a German accent. However, when he expresses his outrage at being lied to by Hitler, his natural British accent comes through rather clearly.
Georg Leibbrant
Played by: Ewan Stewart
Part of the occupying administration for the Eastern Territories, Leibbrant 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.
Tropes:
- Karma Houdini: Never truly punished for his involvement in the Holocaust.
- Precision F-Strike: Drops one in a conversation with Neumann while the latter argues that Operation Reinhard will drastically impact the number of available workers for slave labour in Nazi territories.Erich Neumann: I've done the arithmetic. The real size of the labor force is already a million less than the figures show.
Georg Leibbrandt: The economic considerations are not the only considerations, you see.
Erich Neumann: I'll say they're not. Have you done the extrapolations?
Georg Leibbrandt: My friend, with due respect, may I say, "Fuck the extrapolations?" - Villainous Friendship: Seems to have one with Meyer.
Alfred Meyer
Played by: Brian Pettifer
A bespectacled, shrewish man, Meyer represents Alfred Rosenberg's Reich Ministry for the occupied Eastern Territories. Also a Gauleiter (provincial governor), making him a subordinate to Martin Bormann (and technically, Klopfer) as well. He committed suicide in 1945 when it became apparent that Germany was about to lose the war.
Tropes:
- Better to Die than Be Killed: As the Allies advanced into Germany, he shot himself rather than be tried as a war criminal.
- Establishing Character Moment: Double Subverted. He is introduced laughing and joking with the others, which is the last time he so much as cracks a smile. His actual moment comes when the meeting actually starts, cutting off his subordinate's introduction to curtly introduce himself and having to be reminded by Stuckart to actually give his name.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Meyer, the bespectacled Secretary of the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, urges the others to proceed with the genocide as quickly as possible to depopulate Eastern Europe.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Advocates getting on with the Holocaust as quickly as possible to avoid diverting too many resources away from the Eastern Front.
Otto Hofmann
Played by: Nicholas Woodeson
Head of the SS Race and Settlement Office, it is his authority that is most directly usurped by Heydrich. After the war, he was jailed for 6 years (from a 25 year sentence) for war crimes. He became a clerk in Bad Mergentheim, where he died in 1982.
Tropes:
- Captain Obvious: "Hofmann, SS Race and Settlement Main Office, we deal with matters of race and settlement."
- Even Evil Has Standards: Hofmann is visibly sickened when he learns the details of the gas chambers and has to excuse himself from the table to go to the bathroom. He at first tries to blame it on mixing alcohol at lunch, and then on a bad cigar.
- Obliviously Evil: Otto Hofmann somehow manages to get through the entire meeting without realizing that he's just receiving marching orders for a genocide. At the end, he still seems to think Heydrich's orders are merely suggestions, and that his opinions regarding sterilization will still be considered.
- Sand In My Eyes: When they finally get past the preamble of the meeting and Eichmann begins describing, in detail, the method of mass gas extermination, Otto Hoffmann becomes visibly sickened and excuses himself to rush to the bathroom. He at first claims it is because he mixed wine and whiskey while eating, and then that it was probably a bad cigar.
Erich Neumann
Played by: Jonathon Coy
Director of the Office of the Four Year Plan, Neumann is subordinate to Hermann Göring. His only concern whatsoever seemed to be severe shortage of labor force, hence his appeals to spare Jews who were working on vital industrial objects. He was interned by the Allies in 1945, but released in 1948 on the grounds of poor health. He died in 1951.
Tropes:
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Neumann works directly under Göring, Hitler's Number Two, 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 justified by the backdrop of the film: Göring is engaged in a power struggle with the Nazi Party (Bormann) and the SS (Himmler), the latter two of which make up the majority of the conference. This also reflects a curious Truth in Television, in that much of the high-levels of Nazi government (including Hitler) weren't very interested in and in fact disdained economic management except as a means of fueling their military ambitions, to the point that immediately before the war Germany was in real danger of complete economic collapse.note
- Even Evil Has Standards: While Neumann’s arguments against exterminating laborers could be seen as Pragmatic Villainy he is also seen agreeing with Stuckart that sterilization is preferable to mass murder.
- Establishing Character Moment: It's immediately obvious that he's a nervous man and eager to please those he considers his betters."N-Neumann, Office of the Four Year Plan, so good to see you..."
- Hidden Depths: Neumann is a twitchy, nervous guy without the assertiveness to be taken seriously by the other participants, but he also is intelligent in his own areas of expertise. When the discussions actually come around to matters under his control he speaks a lot more clearly and forcefully, even interrupting other people, than he does in other conversations.
- Professional Butt-Kisser: Neumann is hell-bent on ingratiating himself to all of the other guests, particularly Dr. Stuckart.Stuckart: How are you, Neumann?
Neumann: Well, always surprised and flattered, Dr Stuckart, that you recognize me.
Stuckart: And I am always thanking you for saying so.
Heinrich Müller
Played by: Brendan Coyle
Chief of The Gestapo and as such immediate subordinate to Reinhard Heydrich and a boss of Adolf Eichmann. He walked out of the Führerbunker on May 1, 1945 and was never seen again, dead or alive.
Tropes:
- Beware the Quiet Ones: He is noticeably more reserved and less overbearing than Heydrich, but as the head of the Secret Police, everyone fears him. His contributions to the discussion establish that he's at least as bloodthirsty as Heydrich, if not more so.
- Never Found the Body: Müller disappeared at the end of the war and was last seen strongly implying he was about to kill himself rather than be captured by the Soviets.
- No Sympathy: When Stuckart raises the emotional distress breaking up Jewish-German families will cause, to say nothing of the mountain of red tape it will cause, Müller makes it plain that, in his view, German spouses of Jews are race traitors whom he would throw into the same truck to the camps as well.
- The Starscream: It's hinted that he suspects Heydrich of having Jewish ancestry, daring Klopfer to ask him directly and report his findings.
- Villainous Friendship: He carpools and is apparently friends with Roland Freisler.
Dr. Josef Bühler
Played by: Ben Daniels
State Secretary of Hans Frank's Generalgouvernement (of Poland). 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 Volksdeutsch). He testified against Hans Frank during the Nuremberg trials and was later extradited to Poland, tried, and hanged in 1948.
Tropes:
- Adaptational Dye-Job: The real Bühler had dark hair. In the film, he's platinum blond.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Bühler points out to the ignorant Luther that it is often distressing for their soldiers, who have some semblance of honor, to shoot unarmed women and children in mass slaughters. His tone seems to indicate he agrees with them.Martin Luther: I'm sorry, why can't you shoot them?
Josef Bühler: Did you not hear [Lange]?! It is the worst thing for our soldiers to be doing! There are women, there are children, and soldiers have a sense of honour! - Historical Beauty Update: The real Bühler was rather plain-looking and broad-faced, whereas in the film he's portrayed by the dashing Ben Daniels.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Josef Bühler was handed over to the Poles after the war and hanged.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Advocates proceeding with the Holocaust swiftly before the confined and unsanitary conditions within the ghettos results in a pandemic that could spread to German forces.
- Villain Has a Point: Several attendees opposed to the Final Solution make the argument that reducing the population of available labor while fighting a war is a bad idea. Bühler points out that, in the Eastern ghettos at least, none of the Jews are fit for labor anyway: most are old or diseased, and those that aren't have never worked a day of hard labor in their lives.
Rudolf Lange
Played by: Barnaby Kay
The SS Officer in charge of SD forces in Latvia. Under his command, Einsatzgruppe A is believed to have exterminated a quarter of a million Jews. He was last seen in Poznan in 1945, and it is believed he was either killed in action or committed suicide.
Tropes:
- Establishing Character Moment: Lange has one the second he steps out his car: "No silence in Latvia — no silence like this..."
- Even Evil Has Standards: Lange is a ruthless officer currently involved in the genocide, but he finds shooting and disposing of Jewish noncombatants (families and children mainly) to be increasingly unsettling. He takes personal offense when Heydrich keeps insisting on euphemisms for the killings, as it does not reflect what he has been doing in the field.
- Historical Villain Downgrade: Lange was an unrepentant Nazi and there is no indication that he felt anything other than joy at shooting dead thousands of Jews. The film version is a Shell-Shocked Veteran, although this is used in order to highlight the Real Life problems the Nazis had with mass shootings (that they turned men into "psychopaths or neurotics.")
- Laser-Guided Karma: Lange was last seen in Poznań shortly before it fell to the Russians. It's assumed he either shot himself or was killed in action.
- My Master, Right or Wrong: Major Lange is briefly mentored by General Heydrich after Lange notes how disturbed he is by all the massacres in the East, encouraging him to leave policy to politicians. When Heydrich later asks Lange for his opinion at the table, he simply submits to the chain of command and states that he has no other gods before it.
- Pet the Dog: When Eichmann's description of the gas chambers makes Hoffmann sick to his stomach, Major Lange steps in to comfort him and even offers the other guests the excuse of a bad cigar. It's hardly surprising that Lange, who had been assigned to slaughter civilians by the thousands, would sympathize with not having the stomach for that sort of thing. He also has a cordial conversation with Kritzinger over the increasingly brutal measures used in Germany's personal war on Jews.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Of a sort; of the participants at the conference, Lange is the only one who is currently directly involved in the extermination of the Jews and, while he's certainly pretty enthusiastic about the killings, is clearly a bit haunted by his experiences. This also leads him to hold a certain degree of contempt for the bureaucrats and euphemistic language he's surrounded by.
- Sociopathic Soldier: Deconstructed. SS Major Lange is the closest you could get to this, as he's leading one of a number of huge death squads through the occupied Soviet Union shooting unarmed civilians en masse and encouraging racist locals to kill Jews in mobs. However, he and his men are becoming increasingly disturbed by the sheer level of inhumanity they're supposed to inhabit. Heydrich introduces the gas chambers to make the murders easier to carry out for the perpetrators.
Roland Freisler
Played by: Owen Teale
State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice. Does not say much, but his preoccupation with Communism frequently figures into the conversation. Soon after the conference, he became Presiding Judge of the People's Court — the highest court dealing with political crimes, and brought some really ill fame upon himself when he sentenced to death dozens of people involved in the July 20, 1944 coup against Hitler. He was eventually killed in a USAF bombing raid in 1945, which just barely prevented him from giving out yet another death sentence. The man whose life was thus miraculously saved, Fabian von Schlabrendorff, later became one of Germany's top judges.
Tropes:
- Dirty Communists: Averted by Freisler in a conversation with Alfred Meyer; Freisler argues that the Russian people themselves are not communist at all, but will simply accept whatever role is forced upon them, provided they are given the basic needs of survival... in an extremely racist manner unsurprisingly that is inadvertently complimentary to the Jews by comparison.Alfred Meyer: A communist, by definition, has a defect of reason.
Roland Freisler: The Russian is not a Communist, my friend. The Russian does not give a damn who runs things. I have lived amongst themnote . The Russian only cares he has a bottle of vodka to suck and some form of domestic animal life to fuck. Then he will happily sit in shit his whole life. That is his politics. I know those people. That is the distinction. I absolve the Jews of that. - Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: After Eichmann describes the effect of carbon monoxide on those in the gas chambers (namely that the bodies turn pink due to exposure), Freisler cracks an extremely sick joke.Roland Freisler: The Jews go in red and come out pink, now that is progress! (Freisler, Luther, and Schöngarth crack up laughing)
- Hanging Judge: While technically not a judge at the time of the conference (a few months later he was appointed President of the People's Court — the de facto highest court position in Nazi Germany), he is malicious, bloody-minded, and openly contemptuous of the concept of rule of law. In real life, he was at least as vile as he is played here.
- Historical Beauty Update: The real Freisler was a cadaverous-looking, big-eared and balding thin man at the time of the Wansee Conference, quite the opposite to Owen Teale.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Freisler, who became a notoriously bloodthirsty Hanging Judge after the conference, was eventually killed during an Allied bombing raid on his way to the bomb shelter. Even more satisfying, the man who was being on trial at that time, (Fabian von Schlabrendorff), was a German Resistance member who would later take Freisler's job as one of Germany's top judges. In an even more satisfying way that borders on divine retribution, the air raid itself was commanded by Robert Rosenthal, a Jewish-American lawyer who later became part of the legal team for the Nuremberg Trials.
- Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Despite being a member of the Justice Ministry, he sees no issue with "skipping a few steps" and throwing out the laws on the books if it will help get rid of the Jews, drawing Stuckart's ire.
- Villainous Friendship: He carpools and is apparently friends with "Gestapo" Mueller. This is a very early hint that Freisler is a Hanging Judge.
Karl Eberhard Schöngarth
Played by: Pete Sullivan
A young, arrogant and careerist SD Officer assigned to the Generalgouvernement. He was captured by the Allies, charged with the murder of a downed Allied airman and hanged by the British in 1946.
Tropes:
- Evil Gloating: Schöngarth gives a contemptuous wink to Bühler and Meyer when they confront him about undermining them.
- Justice by Other Legal Means: Schongarth is never punished for his role in the Holocaust but does get hanged for murdering a POW.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Schöngarth was convicted of murdering a captured American airman, he attempted to pass the blame on to his subordinates but was judged guilty and executed by the British in 1945.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Schöngarth seems to be a rather chillingly realistic example of this; he's boisterous and petty, but at the same time completely detached from any consequences of his actions and childish in his cruelty and sadism, enthusiastically imagining and clapping at the idea of genocide. Neatly encapsulated when Heydrich forces them to stop smoking cigars: Schöngarth, in the midst of cutting a new one, actually goes "Awwww".
- The Sociopath: Like Heydrich, he enjoys bullying others and has no apparent empathy. However, Heydrich's bullying relies on subtle threats and is coated in impeccable manners, while Schöngarth is more blunt, uses his imposing stature to intimidate others, and is openly rude and mocking to anyone he considers beneath him. Heydrich is a sociopath who masks his true nature, which Schöngarth either cannot or does not bother to do.
