Did anyone get a chance to see this HBO film in which Kenneth Branagh essentially did a 90-minute dramatization of the Wannsee Conference? Talk about an unsentimental film that was more shocking than any Spielberg weep-fest. Superb in so many ways. I think Branagh misplayed Heydrich, and Stanley Tucci was horribly miscast as Adolf Eichmann, but in general I though it was incredibly well-done. I expected some kind of cheap morality play, but I really underestimated Branagh.

Yes, I saw it too. They sure did a good job of making a horror movie out of a meeting. I don't know much about Heydrich...how was he misplayed?

Those guys sure ate like kings, too.

I have seen it a couple of times on HBO. It is very unsettling to see such a monstrous undertaking being discussed like it was a business decision.

It is very interesting to read what became of these men at the end of the movie. I won't spoil it by discussing anyone specifically, but let's just say that justice does not always catch up with the guilty.

-DavidCPA

"I don't know much about Heydrich...how was he misplayed?"

I actually don't know that much about him either, but from the histories I've read, he was far flatter and colder than Branagh's portrayal. Branagh is an extremely charismatic actor who has an inherent "spark" that I think is difficult for him to extinguish but which is completely inappropriate when playing Reinhard Heydrich. Still, it didn't really detract from the film.

"It is very unsettling to see such a monstrous undertaking being discussed like it was a business decision."

Absolutely. It's not a film you hope will come out on DVD so you can buy it -- I'm not anxious to see it again -- but the way in which the competing bureaucratic -- rather than moral -- interests were portrayed fits quite well with what I've read. The lawyer character who becomes so incensed at the violation of the Nuremburg Laws does so solely for procedural reasons. Everybody is worried about protocol. The fact that mass murder is being discussed doesn't enter into it except how the results will effect the war effort and the various ministries. And which regions get to "address the problem" first.

Branagh made a number of excellent decisions in making the film, including eschewing any kind of buildup or aftermath (the film is the conference and only the conference) and not asking the actors to speak in German accents. If it comes out on video, it's definitely a renter for those who didn't get a chance to see it on TV.

"The lawyer character who becomes so incensed at the violation of the Nuremburg Laws does so solely for procedural reasons."

Being a lawyer that represents government entities, I found this aspect (and all of the legal and legislative issues raised) particularly chilling. I've seen circumstances (merely involving money, not lives) where law outweighed people's feelings of morality on an issue, and the parallels to what Branagh portrayed were eeire. I often rant about how often and easily law is legislatively manipulated to make some end result "legal."

That would be "eerie," not eeire.

"It is very interesting to read what became of these men at the end of the movie. I won't spoil it by discussing anyone specifically, but let's just say that justice does not always catch up with the guilty."

Well, it's all a matter of historical record of course, but let's mark this as a spoiler anyway, just in case..
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Heydrich was, as far as I know, the only high-ranking Nazi to have been the target (successful as it turned out (though not for the village of Lidice which suffered so horribly in retaliation)) of an Allied assassination operation. I wonder what it was about him that caused the Allies to single Heydrich out in this way. Whatever it was, it wasn't the final solution, because he was killed only a few months after Wannsee.

"I wonder what it was about him that caused the Allies to single [him] out in this way."

He had been sent by Hitler in the fall of 1941 to eliminate the Czech resistance, which he did by basically rounding people up and shooting them. His regime of martial law, curfews, and executions was quite effective, and managed to pretty much eliminate the Czech leadership. Because of this, the Czech government-in-exile and the British government hatched the plot to have him assassinated.

The reaction was so fierce (Lidice) that the Czech government-in-exile actually disavowed the plot after the war, as many Czechs blamed them for having made the 1941 terror WORSE.

Just as an aside, in "The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials," a very thorough account that desperately needed a good editor, Telford Taylor notes that the British judge wanted to impose the death penalty on Baldur von Schirach, the head of the Nazi Youth organization, because he had proposed bombing British villages in retaliation for Heydrich's death. Taylor doesn't say much about this, other than that it was an "extraordinary" ground for proposing a death penalty. In the end, Schirach got 20 years, served the full sentence, was released from Spandau prison on the same day as Albert Speer and died in 1974.

This was a remake of a joint British/German production of the same name, though the original was entirely in German. I thought it was better than Branaugh's version, mainly because it seemed more authentic.

You can have your Sex and the City, your Sopranos, your Conspiracy.. but what's funnier than Arli$$? That show just cracks me up!