I don't know if anyone would agree, but in my opinion,
Eichmann looks way to sympathetic, and after watching
the movie, you're not really disgust by him...
After all, he was the greatest cause for the final solution.
Would anyone disagree?
If so, please comment.
...but how you act and think. As you say, Eichmann was the chief architect of the Final Solution, a man virulent in his hatred of the Jews.
But this is the achievement of 'Conspiracy'. The attendees at Wannsee decided on the details of the mass "evacuation" of millions of people in the most matter-of-fact, even banal, terms. With such a common purpose on the agenda there was little need for anyone to show their true colours, and the only thing that mattered was agreeing to toe the party line. Therefore Branagh's Heydrich, the cold, sadistic 'Butcher of Prague' is allowed, under these circumstances, to be portrayed as a cultured, almost jovial man.
And Eichmann is presented as his deferential, efficient secretary. I don't feel at any time he comes across as sympathetic to the matters his fellow party members are discussing - like any good host he is attentive to the needs of both his guests and his superiors [both present and absent] and so listens rather than talks, unless required to do otherwise. His role was arranging the conference - and then implementing its decisions.
Did you not find it rather chilling, knowing what came afterwards, that he is congratulated upon his powers of organisation at the end of the film?
And he shot the man with the wing-nut ears straight between the eyes!
I dunno but the most famous picture of Eichmann is one of the most chilling potraits ever taken. The one where he has one eye half closed, with his SS cap at a rakish tilt. The very embodiement of Nazi evil. It's even more disturbing than any picture of Adolf Hitler. Come to think of it, pictures of Heydrich as equally disturbing.
shareAnd don't forget about Mengele, his pictures were always the most disturbing in my opinion.
share...and he is completely ruthless in his handling of the personnel and especially the waiting drivers. There he shows us what kind of a man he is -- the attentive well-organized host to his guests, the cruel disdainful officer to those below him. / elisabet
sharehe terrorised the waiter who dropped the dishes,he did the same to the drivers outside in the snow waiting.He gave looks of disgust everytime he addressed the common staff,but he kissed arse to all his comrades..there was an underlying current of evi and menace in him,,,.no, to me he was portayed by tucci brilliantly... he gave me the creeps.....
shareIt's part of the point that the film was making, that these were normal human beings who perpetrated an act of unspeakable horror. If they'd made them appear 'less' human and more sinister (in the way that horror movies do with their villains), then the film would have lost a lot of its power.
shareEichmann wasn't the chief architect of the Final Solution. I think most scholars confer this dubious honor upon Heydrich. The film stronlgy implies this as well.
share...that Eichmann had the supervisory job once plans were in place. Heydrich died a deservedly painful death soon after Wannsee and never got to take further part in the matters discussed that day.
Don't forget the extermination program was underway by this stage, although on a lot smaller scale. The Wannsee conference was mainly for bureacratic reasons; to gain cross-party support and cooperation for a policy that was already being implemented. And following Heydrich's death Eichmann was the man who organised this policy into what Goering called 'the total solution', using the infrastructure of camps, labour and guards that Himmler had already established.
But you only have to look above them to see who the real 'chief architect' was.
"Wonder what took her so long to get mad?"
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No, not on a much smaller scale. At that time 1,500,000 million Jews had been murdered by the Einsatzgruppen, that was a quarter of all the Jews that would die during the Sho'ah. That's not a small scale.
shareEichmann was not the architect-he was the chief bureaucrat,the guy who organized the trains,saw that people were rounded up-the administrator.The architects were higher up the chain-Heydrich set it up,then he died.The system he devised rolled on with Eichmann seeing to its smooth running.When Heydrich died he was replaced by Dr Kaltenbrunner,a much less "impressive" figure than Heydrich-a small minded secret policeman and alcoholic.It's interesting to think that Heydrich was actually assassinated because the Czech government in exile and the Allies feared his actions as Governor of Czechoslovakia and Moravia were too "liberal" and lessening anti-German hostility in the area.Heydrich was evil personified,but unlike a lot of Nazis he was no triumphalist bull headed idiot,he knew you had to use the carrot as well as the stick-utter brutality,which increasingly became the policy followed in German occupied Soviet areas,just made you more enemies and as a result harder to win the war.
shareTho they did seem to portray several of the attendees almost laughably as "the sensitive Nazis" any doubts of their true sentiments were subtly yet horrifically communicated by that wordless, hate-filled, demonic-like table pounding.
You know me. I'm just like you. It's two in the morning and I don't know nobody.
Pounding the table with your hand or fist is exactly what Europeans of that time period did to show approval instead of clapping. It's actually historically more accurate. It's not a hatemonger or Nazi or Satan worshipper thing at all.
What did you want them to do? Stand up, and start pounding their hands together like a mentally deficient moron, or yell an inane 'Wooo Hooo' that seems to be so prevalent now. People were a little more reserved sixty plus years ago, and customs have changed.
It may well be historically accurate, but it was likely the director's intent to have the characters appear menacing.
You know me. I'm just like you. It's two in the morning and I don't know nobody.
Given that the context of their conversation was the methodical extermination of an entire people, yes it was certainly menacing.
It conveyed that not only was the idea of mass murder on a scale of millions acceptable, but it was enthusiastically supported by the men present: hence the table pounding. Very menacing indeed.
However, if they were discussing floral arrangements or wine tasting or some other completely benign topic, the table pounding might be odd, or even eccentric, but probably not nearly as menacing. At least to me, that is.
you still do that table pounding thing in university in europe, when the prof has finished. very common thing.
I think one of the things that the film tries to show is that these people didn't look like comic villains as we may expect. From the way they talk and participate in the meeting seems like a business meeting among different departmens with the usual "who makes what" and "who is in charge", "there is a report...", "let me give you some figures" and so on. It's just crazy how they are thinking about production numbers while referring to killing human beings, mostly jews in this case.
Please compare this movie and its subtle violence with the more explicit of "Schindler's List" by instance. Having in mind that the first is the only cause of the second one.
Since we must understand history in order not to repeat it, I highly recommend this movie. It may be confusing and slow at times though.
Agree. For the past 60 years the world has made the mistake of personifying evil as a snarling, spitting, monocle-wearing Hollywood caricature SS stormtrooper with a Luger on his hip and a bull-whip in his hand. Evil is often actually best implemented by quiet, grey bureaucrats who own puppies, grow vegetables in their gardens, kiss their children before they go to bed, don't smoke, etc. Evil usually doesn't walk around wearing a sign around its neck saying "Beware, this is Evil!" That is why people tend to ignore real evil when they see it, and allow it to get away with so much. I'm disgusted with how the world stood by and watched the start of the Holocaust without doing anything (sending back European refugees, etc.) I'm even more disgusted with how the world subsequently stood by as other genocide was perpetrated again and again in Cambodia, Rwanda, the Balkans and now in Darfur. We need to move beyond the steriotypes and realize it's not just fervent Nazis who do these things. Sometimes it's people almost like you and me ...
shareVery well said. Exterminating "enemies" didn't start or end with Nazis. Today we have Syria.
shareThe fact is that Eichmann had film-star good looks and you don't need to be disgusted by his appearance just because of what he did. What this film conveys is the idea much promoted by historians such as Hannah Arendt, who summarised the point brilliantly with the title of her book written shortly after Eichmann's trial in Jerusalem- 'The Banality of Evil'.
Furthermore, it is very far from the truth to label Eichmann the 'greatest cause for the final solution'. Granted, his involvement and work was utterly necessary for the execution of the Final Solution, yet Himmler and Heydrich, and even Göring and Göbbels played a more integral part in bringing the ideals to fruition. (Remembering this is purely historical opinion) Eichmann did not join the Nazi party in 1932 with deftly anti-Semitic views. His vitriolic hatred gradually developed during his years in the SS and SD and being under the influence of older male figures during this time.
This peak of development, I feel, was perfectly portrayed by Stanley Tucci in the film which is entirely commendable.
I would recommend Hannah Arendt's Eichmann biography-cum-account of his trial to anyone interested in the History of the Holocaust. According to that book, Eichman at wannsee as little more than a secretary, completely out of his depth among all the real "big names".
He had an absolutely instrumental role, but he was not the cause of the Holocaust. His function went gradually from being in charge of Jewish forced emigration (I am not using any euphemisms: the goal was to get them out of Germany) in the thirties to coordinating the transit of people from cities or ghettos into concentration camps. If Arendt's widely documented book is right, he never had any real decision-making power. I don't mean to say that he was not a horrible criminal, only that his function in the crime was to transport people and follow orders.
Tucci is perfectly cast. He looks appropriately mousey and harmless. This is precisely what Hannah Arendt meant by the "banality of evil". His ordinariness makes him all the more frightening. A superb movie.
shareI thought Eichmann was the only one with a simple villain's appearance. Tucci looked perhaps too Italian for the role, as Adolf Eichmann was typically German. These were the only grievances for me.
Eichmann was made to look as a chief architect of the final solution by the Israeli court and by the media of the time and later. He was a rare specimen of nazis caught after the war, who had some responsibility. The Israelis of course wanted to hang him (which was only just) and made is role too big to further justify their only peacetime execution. Eichmann, according to most historians, was not the chief architect. As he said in the court, he was an organizer who got orders from higher.
Still, he knew very well what he was doing, what purpose he was serving and in this organizing he was too efficient to claim innocence or to point fingers to other directions. He was a man of medium importance and also well replaceable, so he could have done something else. Common decency says, that he should have strongly objected against the whole holocaust.
There was not a main architect, but more like a machinery, which supported other parts while learning and studying what other parts are doing. Heydrich called these men to a meeting Wannsee. Heydrich was acting under Göring's authority. Eichmann was mainly a secretary and also an advisor.
I'd have to disagree. I think Tucci's method of using a bland, rather milk-toast way of talking contrasted very well with his spurts of swaggering, snobbish anger.
Example: The young busboy falling to the floor and breaking the crystal. Eichmann acted like a punk and bully, like a "little man" allowed to be big.
Also contrast that with his tiny bit of groveling as the Branagh came into the house.
I found interesting his flirtations with the housemaid as she helped him on with his coat.
No, I think the low-key acting was correct.
In reply to the original post, most of the Nazis didn't look like monsters or were deformed. The scariest thing about the Nazis was the fact that they were normal looking people that had families who they went home to after plotting the killing of millions & loved their families & their country. That these educated family men could convince themselves that they were doing what was best for god & country is the scariest thing about the Nazis. It would be so much easier to understand how the Nazis did what they did if they were monsters & not normal men.
People & Hollywood want to create the image that all Nazis were these monstrous beasts that thrived on killing everybody, but they weren't. They developed an unbelievable hatred for anyone that didn't look like them, think like them, or believe like them. That they could go to a Death Camp & gas thousands of people then go home to their wife & kids & be a husband & father is far more frightening than if they were monsters.
I shagged her pink ass & she LOVED it!
I don't think that Eichmann was the greatest cause for the so called final solution. It's not an excuse for what he did, but he was just following orders. Neither was the "final solution" his idea nor was he in a position in which he could have put through a plan like this.
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I think that Stanley Tucci's portrayal of Eichmann was chilling in the sense that, as the end scene where Heydrich and Muller are discussing the effects of Carbon Monoxide gas illustrates, he almost baulks at the suggestion of his showing weakness in front of his SS and SD peers.His refusal to discuss the effects and his low keyed,yet thinly veiled malevolence depicts what I think the real Eichmann would have been like. His assertion that the nature of human existence can be discussed like commodities is the one truly disturbing aspect of the Wannsee minutes.
A fantastic film with a fantastic cast. Only one question remained. The uniform that Eichmann wore was that of an SD Obersturmbannfuhrer and not that of SS. Can anyone assist please?
I too respect this film for portraying the Nazis as a group of "normal" people having a conference. The fact that they are discussing such unspeakable horrors in such normal and banal terms only adds to the fact that these men are just plain cold hearted monsters. Even the most "sympathetic" character at the table was an ardent racist who had no problem with segregation and discrimination. He only objected to the outright killing of the Jews. This is hardly a "noble" positon.
The others who objected to the Final Solution also did so for less than noble reasons: winning the war, killing "dumb" Russians instead, to keep Jewish women around to rape, or to spare their soldiers the loss of morale for future war endeavors.
You are speaking of Dr Kritzinger, I think...he was arrested after the war, questioned...but not tried. He alone of the survivors of the conference apologized. I wonder if there's a good biography of him somewhere.
Bigotry is unjustifiable but one must consider the times. The liberal icon Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote a decision upholding forced sterilization; in the states of the former Confederacy marriage between whites and blacks (but not Native Americans or, I think, Asians)--and "black" was legally defined as to at least having a black great-grandparent--was illegal until...um...the mid-sixties if I remember aright.
Isaac Asimov remembered a conversation which took place among older relatives of his in the late thirties, before the catastrophe began but after the Nuremburg laws were in place. His relatives were discussing the plight of Jews in Germany. One aunt or female cousin said something like, "It's horrible how they treat the Jews in Germany." He interjected, "Yes...it's as bad as how they treat Negroes in the South." His relative responded, "What's wrong with how they treat Negroes in the South?" It's been years since I read the anecdote, but I think my memory is not faulty.
I think, ultimately, Kritzinger had a change of heart.
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