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*** “The Wahnsee Conference.”
Prism. $79.95. 1984.
This is a brisk and chillingly detailed re-creation of the infamous 1942 meeting called by Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Nazi Secret Police and Secret Service to set in motion the “Final Solution,” decreeing the systematic extermination in German-occupied Europe of all Jews and all others decreed undesirable by the Third Reich. Working from extensive documents, director Heinz Schirk and writer Paul Mommertz have created a mesmerizing you-are-there atmosphere (of heavy-handed Gemutlichkeit ) that becomes a portrait of individuals caught up in collective self-deception--and who spell out the terms of the Final Solution with a cowardly indirectness.
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