By the winter of 1942, the Russians had repelled German forces after the spectacular failure of Operation Barbarossa. Despite low morale, the Nazi war machine proceeded apace. One enterprising officer in particular, Reinhard Heydrich (then the Chief of the Reich Main Security Office), had engineered the mass extermination of Jews within the territorial control of the German advance in Russia during the autumn of 1941. In recognition of Heydrich’s administrative prowess, he was charged by Göring with submitting a plan for ‘a final solution.’
German resolve to advance the extinction of the Jewish population was by January of 1942 a fait accompli. Nonetheless, Heydrich assembled Nazi political leaders at Wannsee to consolidate power by ensuring administrative compliance from the dozen or so agencies under their control. That conference is dramatized in Frank Pierson’s BBC/HBO production of the events at Wannsee, which kicks off this month’s series of conspiracy-themed movie recommendations at RBC. It’s Conspiracy (2001).