Conspiracy (2001 TV Movie)

Stanley Tucci: Eichmann

Photos 

Quotes 

• Adolf Eichmann : [puts on a record and listens to the music]  Does it tear your heart out?

  Supervising Butler : [moved by the music]  Beautiful, sir.

  Adolf Eichmann : I have never understood the passion for Schubert's sentimental Viennese shit.

• Lange : I have the real feeling I "evacuated" 30,000 Jews already, by shooting them, at Riga. Is what I did "evacuation"? When they fell, were they "evacuated"? There are another 20,000, at least, waiting for similar "evacuation". - I just think it is helpful to know what words mean... with all respect.

  [Kritzinger bangs the table in applause] 

  Adolf Eichmann : If I might, I think it's unnecessary to burden the record...

  Heydrich : Yes! In my personal opinion, they are evacuated.

  Kritzinger : Explain!

  Heydrich : I have just done so.

  Kritzinger : That is not - no, that is contrary to what the Chancellery has been told. I have directly been assured - I have - that - purge the Jews, yes, but to annihilate them - that we have undertaken to systematically annihilate all the Jews of Europe - that possibility has personally been denied, to me, by the Führer!

  Heydrich : And it will continue to be.

• Müller : [after the meeting, by the fireplace]  What was the story you were going to tell me?

  Heydrich : Story?

  Müller : Kritzinger.

  Heydrich : Yes, he told me a story about a man he'd known all his life, a boyhood friend. This man hated his father. Loved his mother fiercely. The mother was devoted to him but the father used to beat him, demeaned him, disinherited him. Anyway, this boy grew to manhood and was still in his thirties when the mother died, this mother who had nurtured and protected him. She died. The man stood as they lowered her casket and tried to cry but no tears came. The man's father lived to a very extended old age, withered away and died when the son was in his fifties, I think, and at the father's funeral, much to his son's surprise, he could not control his tears. He was wailing, sobbing. He was apparently inconsolable. Lost, even. That was the story Krtizinger told me.

  Adolf Eichmann : I don't understand.

  Heydrich : No?

  [Eichmann shakes his head] 

  Heydrich : The man had been driven his whole life by hatred of his father. When the mother died, that was a loss, When the father died, the hate had lost his object, then the man's life was empty. Over.

  Adolf Eichmann : Interesting.

  Heydrich : That was Kritzinger's warning.

  Adolf Eichmann : What? That we should not hate the Israelites?

  Heydrich : No, that it should not so fill our lives; that when they are gone we have nothing left to live for. So says the story.

  [Eichmann and Muller make no reply, then Heydrich closes the monologue by unpretentiously saying] 

  Heydrich : I will not miss them.

• Adolf Eichmann : Now, last summer Reichsführer Himmler asked me to visit a camp up in Upper Silesia, called Auschwitz, which is very well isolated, and close to significant rail access. And we are turning that camp into a major center, solid structures (and here's where your Jewish labor comes into play, Herr Neumann, the Jews haul the bricks and they build the buildings themselves). And when the structures are complete, we expect to be able to process 2500... an hour. Not a day, an hour.

  Heydrich : And those numbers look a lot better.

  Luther : 2500 an hour?

  Hofmann : 2500?

  Adolf Eichmann : At 24 hours a day, that is 60,000.

  Kritzinger : 60,000 each day...

  Adolf Eichmann : That's 21,900,000 Jews a year, if ever there were that many.

  Heydrich : And we are also constructing the means of disposal, which will obviously depend upon the process of combustion.

  Adolf Eichmann : Yes, it'll be industrial in nature: large commercial gas-fed ovens, no residue to speak of.

  Müller : 60,000 Jews every day go up in smoke.

  Heydrich : We can achieve that. Imagine.

• Klopfer : And how is it you speak Hebrew? Or is it only Yiddish you speak?

  Adolf Eichmann : Well, I lived among them, I worked among them, and I picked up a few words; Jewish, Yiddish, not enough to speak. So I went in search of a rabbi - rabbi means "teacher", I came to find out - Look, may I tell you the Lord's honest truth? So many of our highest-ranking officers, whose responsibility it is to deal with the Israelites, they make no attempt to get inside the Jewish head - I went to visit this rabbi - old man, long beard - in his one-room flat. And when he saw me, his eyes grew as large as hen's eggs. I asked him to teach me his language, and he agreed, and he said that he would, but that he would charge me - of course. So, I applied to my commander for funds, and I was denied; now, I've run into this opposition all my life, so I paid my own money - very little, not much. And he taught me some vocabulary, letters of the alphabet. But looking back, I realize it was poor judgment on my part, because I could have so easily had the old man arrested - put into prison - and demanded lessons from him, in his cell, free of charge. One day, he was rounded up and shipped off because he had gone out unadvisedly. And I thought "That's so stupid... why are they so stupid?" Didn't he know that I would have protected him? At least until my lessons were complete.

• Adolf Eichmann : This meeting is not taking place. You will take no calls for anyone at this meeting. Unless the Führer calls. And he won't.

• Klopfer : [leaving after the meeting]  You certainly know how to throw a party.

  Adolf Eichmann : Thank you.

  Klopfer : Shalom!

• Adolf Eichmann : Smile! It is a fine day.

  Maid : Yes sir.

• SS Maj.Gen. Heinrich Müller : Are they underway?

  Adolf Eichmann : Not yet Sir.

  SS Maj.Gen. Heinrich Müller : Who is late?

  Dr. Roland Freisler : We are.

  SS Maj.Gen. Heinrich Müller : Who is missing?

  Adolf Eichmann : General Heydrich, Sir. But he's on his way.

  Dr. Roland Freisler : He will have his grand entrance.

• Adolf Eichmann : How many rolls?

  Stenographer : Enough for four hours, sir.

  Adolf Eichmann : Too many. Two hours worth should be sufficient.

• Adolf Eichmann : And the - carbon monoxide, what it does is... The bodies come out pink. The gas turns them pink.

  SS.Col. Eberhard 'Karl' Schöngarth : [laughing]  That's a nice touch.

  Dr. Joseph Bühler : If it is already built, what is this meeting? Why bother?

  Heydrich : The system has shown that it works. It will work for you. It is settling in. The method is now defined.

  Dr. Roland Freisler : The Jews go in red and come out pink. That is progress.

  [laughter around the room] 

• Adolf Eichmann : [berating a group of young soldiers outside passing the time by having a snowball fight]  STOP IT! Stop it!

  [all stop and stand at attention, Eichmann approaches one] 

  Adolf Eichmann : You! What are you doing? You're in uniform!

  Soldier : I'm sorry, sir. It just seemed to happen.

  Adolf Eichmann : [angrily slaps him across the face]  Not in uniform, nothing ever "just happens".