The Wannsee Conference: The Documentary

Overview

It was arguably the deadliest conference in human history. The topic: plans to murder 11 million Jews in Europe. The participants were not psychopaths, but educated men from the SS, police, administration and ministries. The invitation to the meeting at Wannsee came from Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Security Main Office. The Wehrmacht's campaigns of conquest in Eastern Europe marked the beginning of the systematic murder of Jews in Poland and the Soviet Union. In mid-September 1941, Hitler made the decision to deport all Jews from Germany to the East. Although there had been transports before, Hitler's order represented a further escalation in the murderous decision-making process. Persecution and discrimination had been part of everyday life since 1933. But as a result, the living conditions for the Jews in the Third Reich became even more difficult, among them the Berlin Jew Margot Friedländer, born in 1921, and the Chotzen family.

Cast

Philipp Schepmann

Self - Narrator (voice)

Margot Friedländer

Self - Interviewee

Götz Aly

Self - Interviewee

N/A

Robert Gerwarth

Self - Interviewee

N/A

Peter Klein

Self - Interviewee

N/A

Martin Kröger

Self - Interviewee

N/A

Martin Cüppers

Self - Interviewee

N/A

Barbara Schieb

Self - Interviewee

N/A

Marcus Gryglewski

Self - Interviewee

N/A

Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann

Self - Interviewee

Adolf Hitler

Self (archive footage)

Hermann Göring

Self (archive footage)