Judge Dennis Davis
The Circle of Evil: Wannsee Seen Through the Prism of the Film ‘Conspiracy’
Judge Dennis Davis and Professor David Peimer - The Circle of Evil: Wannsee Seen Through the Prism of the Film Conspiracy
- [Wendy] Okay, sorry about that. I had two devices on at once. All right, guys, over to you. Thank you.
- Thanks very much, Wendy. I take it we can now start. So tonight or today, depending on where you are, David and I are going to essentially look at the Wannsee Conference, which was of course canvased by Trudy on Thursday in her typically comprehensive style which makes our life much easier, thanks to that luminous lecturer. And we are going to be doing this through two films, which I’ll talk about in a moment, the 1984 Australian-German production, and a 2001 HBO production. And so what we are going to do is we are going to analyse that film and then try to draw implications from it, particularly in relation to the way in which the Nazis used law, which Trudy’s already referred. And secondly, the question of the banality of evil, which looms large as we shall see, and David and I will canvas that as well, drawing out some implications towards the end of the lecture for your analysis and for matters that he and I will be talking about at greater length over the course of number weeks. But I want to start, and I hope with your indulgence, you’ll permit me to do this. Trudy, in her lecture on Thursday said something which is, which kind of weighs with me as well, is that when you do these lectures, particularly such as the Wannsee Conference, what weighs with one is how does one convey this in a sane fashion given the awful nature of the topic and the subject matter?
And how does one keep sane doing this? And what extent does this have, which is quite understandable, a massive effect on the audience, and why then do it, particularly with audiences who really do know a lot about this? Well, I got an answer to that this week. At the University of Cape Town, which has been my intellectual home for literally a half a century, both as a student and as a teacher, an extraordinary event took place I think last week or ever it was, where a lecturer in political science told his students that Hitler had committed no crime. This is on a lecture I might add. He said effectively that Hitler committed no crime because whites did this all the time to blacks. Now, let us just take a moment to fret upon this. In the first place, I need no persuasion about the effect, terrible effect of colonialism on the continent of Africa. Anybody, for example, who’s read “King Leopold’s Ghost” would testify to that. Anybody with a rudimentary knowledge of the apartheid history will know the devastating effects that apartheid had for millions of our fellow South Africans, and the effect that it continues to have on the attempt for us to reconstruct our society. But what sick mind, what deranged human being would actually seek to argue on any and any basis that Hitler committed no crime.
And this in a academic setting, in a setting in which 18 and 19 year-old students effectively are the captive audience. To me, this was so shocking, so egregious that I have to say a couple of things about it. In the first place, of course, I wait with some interest to see whether the University of Cape Town is going to do anything about it. I can’t help but note that Professor Adam Habib, who is now on suspension from service from using the N word in circumstances where in fact, what he was suggesting was anybody who uses the N word will face severe disciplinary action, now is accused of all manner of racist thought in the most abominable way than anybody who wants to see a wonderful repost can look at the “Daily Maverick "article by Thuli Madonsela in relation to that. But here is somebody who essentially said Hitler committed no crime and that, unlike Habib’s Point really is worthy of closure because no university in the right mind could actually have somebody who purveys this kind of pernicious hatred in circumstances where it’s supposed to be an academic setting. And I thought about this in the context of Trudy’s lecture, because of the fact that what I thought to share with you is no, we need to deal with these matters and we need to deal with them so in in the way in which the Haggadah tells us and you shall tell, teach your children and your grandchildren, it is our duty to teach our children and our grandchildren.
It’s our duty to teach our children and our grandchildren exactly what happened so that when they are subject to this kind of pernicious hatred, they have the intellectual equipment and the emotional confidence to confront this in the manner it should. I’m sorry for starting this way, but it struck me that as we were, David and I were talking about the Wannsee Conference and I have done this not to draw David in, but with his, with his acknowledgement that I’m going to do it. I thought I should convey this to you because this lecture now takes for me and even greater importance and otherwise would do and it was going to be important anyway. So with that off my chest, and I do apologise, let me move then to our topic. The Wannsee Conference, as Trudy noted, took place on the 20th of January, 1942. And we know exactly what occurred there because in 1947, the Nuremberg prosecution team found one of the city protocols which had been distributed after the conference having been compiled by Adolf EIchmann. And what you have on the board is part of that.
You saw, Trudy gave you part of it, which was the actual figures of the 11 million composition of Jews whom the Nazis sought to exterminate. What I’ve put on the board is effectively for you the beginning of it, which first starts off with all the names, I’ll come back to it in a moment. And then in this very, and it’s very important that I, that I mentioned this in this sort of matter of fact way. Here as it says, "The meeting opened with the announcement by the chief of the security police and the SD, SS Obergruppenfuhrer Heydrich, of his appointment by the Reich Marshall as Plenipotentiary for the preparation final solution of the European Jewish question. He noted that this conference had been called in order to obtain clarity on questions of principle, the Reich Marshall’s request for a draught plan concerning the organisational, practical and economic aspects of the final solution of the European Jewish question required prior joint consideration by all central agencies directly involved in these questions with a view to maintaining parallel policy lines.” I read that paragraph and the held document is therefore some of it for you to consider, but that’s not my point. My point is, when you read this, you could be reading the minutes of a board meeting, a board meeting or for example, you could be reading the minutes of a government dealing with the vaccine distribution.
It’s put out in that way, as a sort of business document, which reflects a board meeting. And then you see a brief overview of the struggle, review of the struggle conducted up to now and against this foe. And there you see what the elements are. I’m not going to dignify the document with any further reading, but what I wanted to show you was just the kind of document, well, the document that basically gave content to the Wannsee Conference and is very, very crucial to our analysis of the film, the films. And the reason for that is for the simple reason that the entire meeting took between 85 to 90 minutes, both of the films are between 85 to 90 minutes. And that both, both the screenwriter of the two films use this particular protocol as the basis for constructing the film. And David will talk in a minute or two about the nature, the challenges posed to the filmmakers in doing this. So that’s the context in which this takes place. The two films that we are going to look at are firstly a 1984 production, which was an Austrian German production called the “Wannsee Conference”, which was essentially an Austrian German production. And Paul Mommertz, who is the director of that based the screenplays I’ve indicated on the protocol, which was discovered in ‘47 and in fact set the centre of the stage for that. In 2001, HBO produced a film called “Conspiracy”.
Ironically, the only American actor in it is Stanley Tucci who plays an extraordinary role as Adolf EIchmann in the film. But the rest of them are, as you will see, are very famous British actors and we will concentrate on a couple of them in a moment. So that was a 2001 film. One interesting aspect about the 2001 film is a director of that film, Frank Pearson, had watched the 1984 German Austrian film in 1995 and was so influenced by it that he wanted to make his own film. Now we, before I, or before we look at clips of both of the films and we do this because this gives texture and context to what we’re going to talk about. Let me just prepare you, if I may, for a discussion that we’ll have at some point during this conversation about two of the main characters who are depicted in the clip that we shown conspiracy, Wilhelm Stuckart played by Colin Firth and Gerhard Klopfer. It’s an exchange between the two of them. Now, while this is particularly important, because you, you need to understand who they are. As you watched this clip, both of these gentlemen had doctorates, I might add eight of the 15 people, and you’ve got the list there. Eight of the 15 had doctorates from German universities, many of them in law. Now, Wilhem stuck out his dates of 1902 to 1953 represented the Ministry of the Interior and after the end of the war actually became the Cabinet Minister of Interior. He had a PhD, which in in law, which he obtained in 1928, he became, he was first a judge. He was a judge, and then a preeminent legal theorist for the Nazis.
I have spoken in the past about a number of the Nazi theorists, including Carl Schmitt. Well, he was a very important one as well. He was the chair of the Reich committee for the Protection of German blood. And what was also interesting was he co-authored what was the commentary on what was called German racial legislation. So just like strange enough in apartheid, we had commentaries of apartheid legislation here he was the main author of the commentary, which guided all of the bureaucrats in relation to the question of law under the Nazi period in relation to racial legislation. So we’re talking about a hugely educated person, a lawyer who is a judge, and who was deeply steeped in Nazi legal theory. The other person, Gerard Klopfer 1905 to 1987, he too had a doctorate. He had been a judge in Dusseldorf and then had his claim to fame because he was the key figure for seizing Jewish businesses in the late 1930’s under the Nazi regime. He worked for Martin Bormann, whom he represented at the Wannsee Conference. Just one aspect further about these two individuals, Stuckart died in 1953. Trudy’s already alluded the fact that Mossad might have had some role in there, we don’t really know, but there we are.
But note that he lasted beyond the centre of the Second World War, and he did acknowledge the atrocities to some extent at the Nuremberg Trials. Klopfer, who rarely showed no such remorse. He was arrested by the Russians charged and released because of absence of evidence, an extraordinary phenomenon. And he’d lived till 1987. And in fact, reconverted, I hate to say this since I’m in this field myself, at some point he reconverted to being a tax advisor and really quite a successful one at that. Now, I’d like you just to bear that in mind, these two individuals with doctorates and therefore highly educated in the exchange that you’ll see in the second of the two clips. But without further ado, David, we’ll play the two clips and then over to you to essentially deal with the challenges that were posed to the filmmakers in making these, in a sense, bringing to life the protocol, which I’ve just put on the board and which was discovered in '47.
Okay, thank you so much Dennis. And just to add, if I may-
Yes.
A quick thank you to Judy as always for helping fantastically with this and to Wendy. And you know, as, as Dennis said, eight out of the 15 PhDs, highly qualified, including if I may add a Dr. Lange who was in charge of the Einsatzgruppe, as everybody knows, the, the so-called action squads, the police killing squads who roamed Eastern Europe, parts of Russia et cetera, you know, killing with guns and bullets. Also PhD, also at the meeting. One last point is that the meeting represented bureaucrats, Nazi party, SS a whole range of all the functionaries that Heydrich and Himmler wanted to pull together so they’d all be forced to, or wanted to work together to implement this policy. And the aim, apart from what we understand was number one, that Heydrich would, would be the unquestioned leader. And that all the other departments of the functioning bureaucracy and government and Nazi party et cetera, all understood that and would all be part of it. So, and of course all the people they knew and areas they came from, we all know the story of, it’s not just these group, the, you know, these guys. It’s so much bigger. The two films, as Dennis has mentioned, are incredibly brilliant. If you haven’t had a chance, there’s the German film, which we’ll talk about afterwards.
And then Dennis mentioned the British one, which we’re going to have a look at to spark off a series of questions. And the one key thought goes to this here, this is from Dr. Robert Servatius, excuse my pronunciation. He was Eichmann’s defence lawyer at his trial and he’s, he asked a question, he said, “Witness a record of this type of the conference cannot reproduce the atmosphere of the conference, the basic attitudes of the participants. Could you say something about this?” So how do we later represent what happened at next one of the most criminal and most important moments of human history? How do we represent this at 85 minute, 85 minute meeting? How do we represent it for contemporary, not only education, but learning, understanding, furthering of history, of knowledge every, every way in a using film as a medium, you know, decades later? How do we, other than a purely factual representation? So one of the things we’re going to look at is the choice of film to represent history and the questions that throws up the challenges and the excitements. Okay? The first one is from the German version of the production of the film 1984, except for the exterior shots the rest of it was made in studios in Bavaria and Munich.
[Narrator] At the invitation of Heydrich, head of the Security Police and Secret Service, 14 key representatives of the Nazi party of the SS and of the government bureaucracy attended.
Okay, if I may, I just want to move to the, the end here. Sorry, one other clip here. This is an actor playing Eichmann and the actor playing Muller, head of the Gestapo. There you see the secretaries chatting, bon ami camaraderie, that kind of spirit, you know, these, these functionaries. And then here, I want to just stop it here and we’ll carry on. Okay. And this is obviously the actor playing Heydrich and saying, “Because America has entered the war, it changed the situation, Jews can’t be used as a hostage, et cetera, et cetera. You know, all these, these insane justifications. Just to show you some of the actors, And then from here they go into the boardroom scene, 15 sitting around, as Dennis was saying earlier, classic boardroom, corporate style. It could almost be board of directors as if, you know, working for any company, discussing any item, you know, whether it’s the sale of shoes, Coca-Cola or whatever. And the whole atmosphere takes place like that.
Every now and then you hear the sound of the dog outside, which is Dr. Lange’s, he’s the doctor in charge of the, the killings with Einsatzgruppe, as I mentioned. And, but basically the whole thing is run as a boardroom meeting, minutes, perfunctory business and so on. And they drink cognac during it. They brought snacks, they take short breaks and in 85 minutes everything is done. This is a very different portrayal of Heydrich and Eichmann and Mueller and some of the other characters compared to the British version. This is the German one, as we mentioned, filmed in '83 in Bavaria. This is the Kenneth Branagh. Branagh plays Heydrich. And you’ll see, as Dennis mentioned, the conflict in particular between him and Colin Firth character play Stuckart, the lawyer filmed by BBC and HBO in 2001.
Video plays.
Settled. We are moving along. Now we are presented with a difficult problem. My instinct is to be Alexandrian and solve a difficult tangle with a sharp, clean stroke this afternoon. All our actions must be predicated on law. Everything we have done flows from the Nuremberg laws, which Dr. Stuckart brought forth to the Reichstag in 1935. And now we have to examine those, the blood and honour laws in regard to the problems of mixed marriages and persons of mixed blood.
Not only who is a Jew, but how in each defined circumstance the Jews expunged from society, the government, the economy, through ordinances, the tapestry, If you’ll permit some pride.
The exemptions written into the law allow too many Jews to remain among us. We address that problem by examining each category and every exemption.
The Nuremberg laws are very specific-
When I am done. Thank you, please.
I just say one word more now, in the obligation, the obligation to, to maintain a lawful society-
Another-
Lawful society. What will we be saying to those where we are departing from the legal letter and deporting a Jew married to a German, a new law will be required by mandating all these marriage to be-
Consider, consider the Jews are taken away. The German spouses will presumably inherit the property of the Jewish spouses go to court, a death certificate will be applied for and what happens to your secret killings then? No matter what you call them, the secret is out, dear friends. Perhaps not inheritance, perhaps perhaps divorce. Freedom to remarry. So a requisite divorce mechanism dealing with all these marriages to be terminated becomes the right responsibility to its German citizens.
I am speaking. Now, except for those initiated before the spouse is deported, the courts are going to be so busy with divorces that the civil courts will be on 24 hour shifts and the litigation weight will be accounted in decades-
Or longer.
Well I for one, have no sympathy with Germans who climbed into bed with members of the tribe.
Nor do I, I asked myself, what is this concern when the ruling principle of our government and our parties to make Germany Jew free. You are arguing to let these kids stay, to influence them, to operate freely with the exception that you’re new to them?
They’re not free. They they are not free. The Lord restricts them, it isolates them, I am merely speaking-
Perhaps the church has some special love for them.
Yes, yes, yes. Special love for them.
For whom?
But for Jews. Oh, oh, wonderful. Yeah, you don’t have my credentials. Forgive me from your uniform, I can infer that you are shallow, ignorant, and naive about the Jews. You’re lying the what the party rants on about is, is how, how inferior they are. Some, some subspecies. And I keep saying how wrong that is. They are sublimely clever and they’re intelligence as well. My indictment to that race are stronger and heavier because they are real, not your uneducated ideology. They are arrogant and self obsessed and calculating and reject the Christ. And I will not have them pollute German blood.
Please, doctor.
He, he doesn’t understand and neither do his people. Deal with the reality of the Jew and the world will applaud us, treat them as, as imaginary phantoms evil in human fantasies. And the world will have justified contempt for us. To kill them casually without regard for the law martyrs them, which will be their victory. Sterilisation recognises them as a part of our species, but prevents them from being a part of our race. They’ll disappear soon enough and we will have acted in defence of our race and of our species. And by the law this fellow mentioned the law for the protection of German blood. I wrote that law. And when you have my credentials, then we’ll talk about who loves the Jews and who hates them. Pigs don’t know how to hate. Right. I know too that when it comes to the half mixed that to kill them abandons that half of their blood, which is German.
I remember you.
You should, I’m very well known.
Christ.
Gentlemen, if I may for a moment, Dr. Stuckart has raised the question of administrative consequences of evacuation. He is a very brilliant scholar of the law, and I’m sure justice totally committed to a Jew free Europe as any of us. Let us take a moment.
Okay. So we see, just, just looking at it from a filmic representation of an historical event, from that point of view, a very different type of Heydrich character in Kenneth Branagh compared to the German version that we saw a moment ago. I just want to stress, I know everybody knows it and it’s pretty obvious, these are scripts written by screenwriters. These are actors, obviously, these are filmed in the studios. The indoor shots are all filmed. The one was filmed in the Chaplin studios near London, and the other one in studios in Munich. The outside shots are of the actual Wannsee villa. So I just want to repeat, you know, the idea that one can show various ways of coming in with these characters, which provokes for us, for Dennis and I, the question which will be dealing with more later filmically or even in a literary context, how does one represent these extraordinary horrific events and momently momentous events of human history, but, and yet the essential nature of doing so? Everybody knows the Lanzmann "Schindler” debate. You know, Claude Lanzmann with the film “Shoah”, only showed stories told by survivors. “Schindler”, obviously there’s a certain amount of, obviously there’s an reenactment of what had happened. So there’s one go the more naturalistic and literal approach, does one give the other only stories? Does one need to even choose between the two? This, this is a film built with dramatic principles. Yes, both of them are only 85, 90 minutes, so they stick to the exact time of the meeting. But nevertheless, there’s a certain dramatic arc is construction of character.
It’s very interesting that I, for an example, the Colin Firth character playing Stuckart it, the legal expert Eichmann in his trial in '61 said that, that Heydrich had expected Stuckart to be the most difficult in his, I’m using Eichmann’s words here from the translation of the trial, the most difficult person. But that at the trial, sorry, at the conference, Stuckart showed unexpected enthusiasm. Those are Eichmann’s phrase from the trial of talking about the Wannsee conference. So this didn’t happen. This is this, these are screenwriters taking from the 15 pages of the protocols that Eichmann wrote up, but then sent to Heydrich and Heydrich edited them at least three, four times before the final minutes. And the protocols were allowed to be sent out to participants and other functionary officers. The main point about it is showing bureaucracy is showing corporate type meeting, boardroom discussing in this apparently very civilised or this incredibly legalistic language. You also see them discussing in the films, discussing their wives, their children, their animals, their pet dogs.
Discussing a bit of a travel here, a holiday there, you know, taking “Hannah Arendt’s idea which influenced both filmmakers, "The Banality of Evil”, showing them in the very ordinariness given extraordinary power and acting out, but obsessed with the ordinary, daily stuff. But carrying on, you know, this is the meeting where it was all brought together and all of it was decided at, everything we know that came out of it afterwards, 85 minutes. The other thing I wanted just mention a few things just quickly about these two filmic representations of history. And remember, these are decades after the event itself. Just one interesting point. Hitler called Heydrich the man with the iron heart. So even Hitler saw something possibly slightly more extreme than him, if that’s possible. We get the camera, the camera first of all is moving at the, at eye level. It doesn’t show you very few shots coming from above. So, and the intention is to show that we almost feel we are part of the conference when the camera moves at eye level, at, you know, when they’re all sitting and discussing with each other, especially the Stuckart and the big fat guy’s altercation or even with the Branagh and so on. So it tries to make us more immersive as if we’re part of the committee, the boardroom committee, business type of meeting.
So the camera angle is crucial when we have the closeup, when we don’t, with a Branagh, when Branagh just gently puts Stuckart down, puts him in his place, Stuckart is, that’s the same character in the German version. He’s the guy blowing his nose. He has a bad cold. And we see that during the business meeting. He has a bad cold. He calls for water, a bit more cognac, et cetera. At the end of both versions, Heydrich and Eichmann and one or two others. And Muller, head of the Gestapo sit down and have a cognac and Heydrich’s and in Eichmann’s trial, Eichmann said, “Heydrich expressed his satisfaction with the meeting and that Eichmann was allowed to be part of the cognac at the end of the meeting.” Eichmann says that he was allowed to be. So that’s historical record or fact brought in to the dramatic representation. So we have the camera angles moving, there’s no showing of, of any so-called traditional dramatic action. There’s no killing, there’s no murder, nothing. It’s just 15 men bon ami camaraderie spirit at the beginning, chatting as if before an important business meeting and then coming in and the rest of the film is around the table, all scripted, acted again.
Okay, this is important because it shows the camera and the idea of the credible power of film to represent, you know, something like this. As the filmmaker said, a classroom history lesson is not going to work on film. We can’t have a classroom history lesson for an hour. So the question, profound question is provoked how do we later try to represent, try to show these, these extraordinary moments of human history from the grotesque to the absolute horror to anything else. They were influenced by Hannah Arendt’s phrase of “The Banality of Evil”, to show these guys in this particular way, the language they used. And you see it in particular in the German version, the language as the filmmaker said, is not the language of Gerta, Heiner and others. They researched the language of the time and the language was typical of Nazi elite and the educated, the pretence of education, the legalistic phrases and so on. In the one version is the Colin Firth argues back. In the the German version, he doesn’t argue back at all. He’s obsessed with his cold and getting a bad cold.
Very different, but they’re both kept in some of the coarse language. And interestingly with a BBC, HBO Branagh version, they had enormous difficulty with the executives and the producers, the funders, because they wanted the language toned down and less coarse. And the screenwriter and the director and the others said no. For example, Heydrich’s line in the script, which he says in the Branagh version, “We will not sterilise every Jew and wait for the race to die. We will not sterilise every Jew and then exterminate them. That’s farcical. Dead men don’t hump, dead women don’t get pregnant. Death is the most reliable form of sterilisation.” Now that is written in by the screenwriters into it. And that was the phrase that the producers, the funders objected to the most of BBC and HBO, but whichever way we choose to support, the producer, the director, the writers won the day and it stayed in. So there are elements of the coarser, of this other language, which is not just couched in the legalese and so on. The other thing in the German version interestingly, is that the word elegant is used enormously. You know, this is an elegant solution. The gas and the setting up of the camps, it’s more elegant than shooting and pits, et cetera. And so this obsession with an elegant as at the beginning of the Branagh speech, everything will be done by the law, this obsession with the greatest crime in history. And yet most of these are highly qualified lawyers.
And in addition, how this is set about in a very contemporary way I guess, with this boardroom committee type of approach. And the idea was not to teach a history of the Wannsee, but or to create a documentary. Inside this there are elements of drama, of dramatic arc. What we call the dramatic arc rise and fall of dramatic tension. It’s broken by humour and wit, breaks for cognac as the Branagh character is about to go into here. Film is an extraordinary, powerful medium for us as we know it. And it’s an art form. It’s a film to express history, periods in history, documentary, and of course throws up the profound questions of how to throw it all together. Is it voyeuristic pleasure? Are they historical documents? We know they’re marketed because they have to make a profit and ratings. Is it entertainment slash historical and political importance? Where does morbid curiosity, curiosity, entertainment, marketing, how do all these forces play? The showing of business and yet it is made for business and for profit, obviously and ratings. How do we put all these are unanswerable questions, but I think they are profoundly fascinating and profoundly important questions because how do you show us something like this? And then, and many, many other, many other examples from the 'Schindler" example that I mentioned to the Lanzmann example of a show and many other films that we’ll be looking at later, and everybody knows I’m sure. This, I would just say both of these versions were influenced by Hannah Arendt, “The Banality of Evil” idea. They were both influenced by putting the law as at the head of it all and the boardroom committee meeting and so on, and showing the most civilised approach with the most grotesque, horrific, evil being planned, implemented, and executed in 85 minutes. Dennis, over to you.
- Okay, thanks David. I want to say just one, I’m going to make a comment about the law in a moment, but before I do that, I think, sorry, let me also apologise for the fact that for me the quality of what I was seeing certainly on the Branagh one, “The Conspiracy” wasn’t quite the same when I clicked on it. So you didn’t quite get the appreciation of the film, perhaps as you might, and I do apologise, but I hope you got the base. The second point is unlike many kind of historical film depictions, and there are, there’s a book by Anton Kaes “From Hitler to Hameit”, which is particularly important as another one by Bruno Ramirez inside the historical film. And if you look at those books compared to this, the thing here is you have the protocol and it’s true, David’s right, the protocol obviously is a sterilised version of what happened. So what the filmmaker’s done is in a way to sort of put their mind in the mind of the compiler because let me give you an example. In the actual minutes itself, which we didn’t put on the board, but I’m going to read to you.
This is what it says with regard to Stuckart with respect to the point that he’s making or the, in the Colin Firth character. State secretary, Dr. Stuckart maintained that carrying out in practise of the just mentioned possibilities for solving the problem of mixed marriages and persons of mixed blood will create an endless administrative and legal work if in the second place as the biological facts cannot be disregarded in any case, he proposed proceeding to force sterilisation to simplify the problem of mixed marriages possibilities must be considered with the goal of the legislature something, something saying something like these marriages have been dissolved. In other words, if this is a case where you actually have protocols, which tell you broadly what Stuckart said, and then the filmmaker in a sense is making that real. Of course we have no idea whether the actual words deployed by Firth were the words which were used by Stuckart. But you’ve got a pretty good idea when you think of the passage I’ve just read you for the minutes that were compiled by Eichamnn. And that therefore brings me to the point about law and then our final point about banality, it is fascinating is it not that in the Branagh character when he actually talks, he says, “We must do everything based on law”, right?
That is really fascinating. By the way, Kenneth Branagh himself said it was the most difficult role he’d ever played because it was almost impossible to get into the mind of somebody as evil as Heydrich and that they had to use a huge amount of black humour off stage just to cope with the trauma of doing this. But the character that he presents is kind of very, you know, sort of by and by it for the managing director of a company. Our next problem is to follow, you know, in the same way as he’d say, our next problem is can we get the vaccine to the rural areas? It’s exactly conveyed in that way to emphasise the banality of the process. But the law is the thing that interests me. So the big debate here, is you have to do it in terms of law and the Stuckart character as we see because of the protocol is saying, I drafted that law and as I gave you the background, he would’ve, because he wrote the law and he wrote the commentary.
And the question is, here is the perversity of it all, that in fact they are relying on legal principles in order to, as it were, justify this breathtakingly horrendous set of actions that they are seeking to implement at that particular conference in the sterilised fashion, which is presented. And it raises a point, which I’ve raised with you before in a previous lecture, and we’ll come back to this, which is the, when I lectured on judgement at Nuremberg, I raised the famous debate in law and lawyers in this call will know about it hopefully, which is the famous Hart-Fuller debate about whether law should have a moral content or not. And the way in which German legal science during the period building up to the Nazi regime in a sense distilled the concept of a moral content to law from the legal content. So that when in fact people like Stuckart are talking, morality has no role in this, no ethical considerations appear. It’s a simple question of how do you implement a law which has been drafted and once it is the law, it must be obeyed. And if the law essentially disregards millions of people and essentially dehumanises them into something outside of the realm of humanity, well that’s fine, you then just have to worry about how you administratively implement that particular law.
But it is fascinating, is it not the way in which law is no safeguard. And I’ve said this in a number of occasion, no safeguard, for an ethical and moral society. Let us go back to the discussion we had about Volta Benjamin, when David and I did that a little while back. And let me just make the point, and I don’t want to any suggestion that you simply conflate what happened in Nazi Germany with that which happened under apartheid South Africa. But it’s hard as a South African lawyer who in a sense was involved in the struggle and in an attempt to keep the root of law alive, not to kind of reflect upon the way in which the entire apartheid system was based on law. The South African Mixed Marriages Act, the Racial Classification Act, not entirely dissimilar I might add, to the particular laws that they’re talking about here, except that that that absent the questions of extermination. I’m not for one moment during neat parallels, but it is interesting the way in which evil societies such as the Apartheid Society used law, and we need to debate this question further and we will debate this question further when we deal with Nuremberg, because the Nuremberg trials in a sense try to bring in a moral content into the law and to say, no, Dr. Stuckart, you can’t rely on law in this particular way.
But it raises the really interesting question. And of course one of the answers is that if you were a Nazi and you killed another Nazi, well then there would’ve been a proper criminal trial and it would’ve gone along ordinary procedures. So there was a parallel system operating here, law which operated for the insiders, which would’ve been something approximate to a an illegal system law, which operated for everybody else, which in a sense had no affinity to what we would record as a legal system, but in which these bureaucrats mechanistically decided, no, no, no, no, everything must be done according to the law. When you draw back on it, the horrendous consequences of that for how far law can protect a society are things that we must and will debate. But moving on, because time is now of the essence for us, I suppose, 'cause we are already a 25 past, Let me just raise the issue and then hopefully hand over to David so we can exchange ideas on this. David is quite right, that the both of the films when you watch them in a sense, are influenced by the Arendt idea of the banality of evil.
The idea that these are bureaucrats who are essentially just starting bureaucratic functions with a complete disjuncture between, as it were, the functional operation of what they’re doing and the consequences thereof for vast ways of humanity. There is a disjuncture there and the banality is that you are almost watching them do something which could simply be the distribution of pens, pencils, or anything else by a firm to its customers. And it’s in that, that the banality lie. But I want to suggest to you, and we need to talk about this, I don’t think banality explains what we are about. It doesn’t explain evil. Yes, there were two studies done. When I was a criminology student they were quite dominant, and I think they have been spoken about possibly by David, you can correct me if I’m wrong, but by certainly somebody in one of our lectures, the Stanley Milgram and then the Philip Zimbardo studies done in the late '60’s and '70’s. Zimbardo, which were essentially designed to show that if you put people as prisoners over captors, for example, Zimbardo’s, then they would, the people who were appointed to be the the warders would be able and did, and were in fact more than willing to administer extraordinary levels of atrocious behaviour towards their prisoners.
Just as Milgram had had shown that people were prepared under authority to administer quite significant levels of pain to various subjects. Now, those two studies in the late '60’s and '70’s essentially were designed to show, that in the right position, people would behave in exactly the same way as this bunch of bureaucrats did in these two films. That, those studies, however, have been under subjected to serious criticism. There was a BBC study in 2006, which certainly a methodologically called into question both the scientific methodology and the manner of the outcomes of both Milgram and Zimbardo’s. What that raises then for us is if you can discount those studies, you can say yes on a level there was banality, but it does, it may describe a phenomenon, but it doesn’t explain it, it doesn’t tell us why people behave in that particular fashion. It doesn’t explain how it is that somebody with a doctorate and in some cases two doctors who’s been a judge, who has written legal commentaries, who has engaged in legal theory and the judging of people, can behave in this particular fashion in a sense in which their banality is uncoupled to any conception of humanity that they might have.
And it’s that, that I think we have to debate. And it is also true that at one point in my life when I, when I, when I read quite a lot about psychopathy, you know, there was a lot of theory about that. But neuroscience has also given us, in recent times a huge amount of assistance in trying to actually get into the explanation for why it was that people behaved as they were. And then on top of that, we need also to consider the ideological framework within which that society was located, the way in which the ideological framework which Hitler so successfully propagated through that genius, and he was a genius evil as he was, googles, et cetera. They were able to construct a way of looking at the world, which people looked at the world and therefore saw Jews and others as not being human at all. And that has always worried me as to how, how much all of that contributes.
Take for example, and I’ll leave it here and hand over to David, just one final comment. It always struck me, and I have said this before in sitting in two trials dealing with the truth and reconciliation commission cases in South Africa when I had to talk through thousands and thousands of pages of evidence of security policemen who had brutally tortured a political activist and killed them and how they would go to church on the Sunday and in fact kill the person in the morning and then have a barbecue with their, with their fellow killers thereafter with lots of booze, interspersed almost in the same way as this particular movie indicates when they’re all having a nice glass of cognac. And the question is always raise raised is this banality can’t be the explanation, it may be the description. And I think the point that Zarani made about Arendt, that she was fooled by the conduct of Eichmann at the trial also has traction. So I throw these ideas up, each of which probably can explored over a lecture or two, but in which we need to actually consider the banality of evil, which was clearly influenced these films within this broader, psychological and sociological and political context. So David, that would be my take on how we would have to proceed. But over to you.
- Dennis. Thank you. Just a couple of minute, just a couple of thoughts if I may share. I know we are, we’re up, out of time. The one is in terms of banality of evil, so what Arendt was saying, obviously the banal is this extraordinary discrepancy between what they’re actually doing and the the form in which they’re doing it. It’s a form content split. And Gideon Hausner, the everyone knows the, the main prosecutor Eichamnn trial spoke about Eichmann’s sense of self importance. His antisemitism, yes, his ideology, compared to his carefully crafted statements in court. And Hausner was particularly struck by his sense of self importance and egotism and that he had maybe fooled Hannah Arendt, And Arendt saying that that obviously that discrepancy of presentation of form compared to, you know, the inner truth. Together with her, that’s the one idea of the banality. And her second idea was when you have people who can only think in one particular way, they cannot shift their thinking to include A or B.
And their thinking has been so formed. I’ve spoken often before the the Gilroy phrase of, of groomed ignorance. You can inform minds, they can only think in a certain way. You can groom the mind out of ignorance into under accepting a theory of knowledge as Foucault would say, that a theory of knowledge, that this is the knowledge to understand the world and my world that I live in and once I buy that, I’m hooked in. And so Hannah a also talking about a particular way of thinking and the challenge is to try and influence or change a certain set way of thinking, which is one of the toughest things on the planet as we all know. That’s also part of what she means as a kind of philosophical banality and we’ll be debating this I’m sure, more as we go along. The other thing to say about the film is this here, which we wanted to share together from these, this is from the filmmakers and-
Historical advisor.
I’m sorry, one of the films consultant advisors, yeah, Andrea Axelrod, advisor, historical advisor, “Making this into a classroom history lesson is not going to work. The dramatic situation here is a bunch of people,” I’m just going to read it fairly quickly, “gathered together for a purpose they do not know, but frightens them because they’ve been summoned by an authority of which they’re terrified. Their lives will not be the same after it. It’s like "Waiting for Godot”, except Godot comes. When he does, it’s not the Godot they thought he would be. This is at the core of the peace. The more we add explanations and clarity and add historical footnotes on the screen, the more we undercut the strength of the drama we want to tell. But, but, but the banality of evil. We cannot ignore this as a, as a phrase. We must also avoid the pitfalls of conventional dramatisation, dramatic revelations, build confrontations, turning points, grasping developments. Everything is very small, ordinary. The drama of the movie is how the worst crime in history was done by ordinary men, worried about the weather, their jobs, security, their digestion, their sex lives, their dogs, their wives, and so on.“
This is a particular approach which when studies film and drama history, how do we represent as witnesses to history through the, the art form of film or theatre? How do we represent in order to produce an emotional and intellectual response that is highly effective in the audience, in the spectator? And these are, these are debates, current debates in film and theatre, how do we show as witnesses, not mere documentary, not classroom didacticism, but how do we use contemporary media and obviously today, internet and so on? And I would just like to leave us with a final thought, which is a slight adaptation of what, these are endless debates, which Dennis and I will go into later when we look at some other films of these periods. But this plants the seeds of the ideas of the debates I think. The final thought, pulling everything together of the films, the debates, the law, and looking at the conference in through this prism in a sense is for me, captured by Elie Wiesel, where speaks about what is the most feared punishment that the killers might have? Is only one thing. And it is the survivor’s memory.
And he uses the phrase memories, not only testimony. And when we try as, as filmmakers, theatre makers and legal experts all coming together, how do we represent the memory, not just the testimony, because that would perhaps be more what we call verbatim theatre or documentary. How do we show memory of the, in this case, an such a momentous moment of 85 minutes in history, how do we show the memory that can that be resonant, be effective, powerful for, for audiences young and and middle-aged and old decades and decades later? And let’s go on, you know, decades to come. And for me this powerful idea of not only being witness to memory, how do we represent it that can bring these disparate elements of art, drama, theatre, film, law, history, et cetera, questions of philosophical importance, morality, et cetera. And I think vessel captures it, you know, that the most powerful to never forget the bigger picture, the most powerful weapon that, that perhaps these killers might feel slightly punished or that might be resonant later is the memory of the survivor or the victim if they haven’t moved. Thanks very much Dennis as always, love working with you.
Yeah.
Appreciate it.
Yeah, I suspect we’ll have to look after some of these questions, David. I’ve got them on the board, some of them for you, some of them for me. I’ll quickly go through this.
[Wendy] Hi guys, can I just jump in? I just want to jump in quickly just to say that, that we’re going to have Elie Wiesel’s son, you know, he’s Elijah, so he’ll be to us. So you’ll ask him questions as well, David, on the 25th of this month, so we’re going to be able to follow through on that.
Fantastic, Wendy, thank you.
Thank you for an outstanding presentation, both of you. So okay. Over to you with a question. Thanks.
Q&A and Comments:
Q: Thanks, thanks Wendy. Alan, I think I’ve answered that question, which was of course you asked me with, I going to comment on Dr. Lushaba. It’s exactly what I’ve done, anonymous, any backlash from the UCT administration?
A: I wait with interest to see whether there will be, Linda asked me for the journalist to publish the article on "Daily Maverick”, the “Daily Maverick” article on Adam Habib which is an important article saying he’s not a racist, but goes into a great deal of interest on this was actually published last week under the names of Barney Pityna, P-I-T-Y-N-A and Thuli Madonsela, M-O-D-E-N-S-E-L-A. You’ll find it by looking at the “Maverick”, I’ve dealt with that gi to the protest from academic community is muted and understandably so. 'Cause people are absolutely in a, this kind of climate are petrified.
Q: Do they remain, do they not both address humanization strangely if two or for creative validity?
A: I’m not entirely sure I understand that, but it is interesting the way of course the EFF will jump down the throat to Adam Habib and when you’ve got these kind of absolutely egregious behaviour and this, the gentleman from UCT, it’s not the first time he’s done this, he of course will be praised by them.
Q: Are you quite right, Robert? When was the conference hold in relation to the Battle of Stalingrad? It was obviously before because Stalingrad came afterwards.
A: Stalingrad was late '42. And I see that we are going to be getting a lecture in this programme on a Vasili Grossman whose book “Stalingrad” is one of the great classics of the 20th century. But what I was going to say was that you were right, that the war had begun to turn because the Germans had not been able to conquer the Russians within the six months that had been promised at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa. There was a great deal of anxiety now, 'cause they’d got stuck in the snow in Moscow. They’d been driven back and there was no doubt that in many minds, the trajectory of the war had begun to turn even before Stalingrad, which I think prompted some historians would say, prompted the expedition of this pernicious programme of extermination.
The setting, the Wannsee Conference remind me of the setting the… Yes it does, doesn’t it? David, is “Conspiracy” on Netflix?
I don’t know, on Netflix, one can get the German version of conspiracy on YouTube, but not the Branagh one, the German one is available on YouTube for anyone to download.
Clive, as the Nuremberg laws in place, the Nazis could hide behind and declaring the acts and deeds as legal. That was the point Clive. And that’s why, that’s why certainly when I, when I discussed judgement at Nuremberg, I debated that in Canvas there in great length and we will continue to deal with that because the issue of whether you could behind, behind laws, superior, superior orders and the notion of law itself was really a very central issue to the Nuremberg laws. And indeed, when I discuss these matters, particularly Lemkin, and with Philippe Sands, who of course dealt with the, the magnificent book of his “East West Street”, I will talk about that even more.
In fact, I saw another question saying law always has moral content. Actually, that’s nonsense. Unless you’re going to say that the moral content is moral content of an evil person. If it’s the question of whether law has moral content and therefore the question of what law is, has to pass criteria of both legal and moral, well then that’s a massive debate, which we spend literally about six months of any jurisprudence legal philosophy course dealing with.
But the issue of hiding behind laws, that’s a fascinating question and we will deal with it. There’s, David, there’s, here’s a question from Lucy Huberman who is a, an historian, filmmaker, and a professor, and she’s raised certain points which seem to be more on yours. I’ll read them out. There was at least 20 years between these two forms and lots of change in Germany, their 20 years in cinema and television. The answer to the question, how do we represent these terrible things, the launch of allies and the motivation, skills and vision of the filmmaker, they’re all valid. They all mean something in context.
- Yeah. Thank you Lucy. Thank you. These are absolutely the profound questions. You know, up for debate in formic representation of historical events, whether it’s a period history or whatever it is from, from here we’re looking at the Wannsee obviously, but obviously there this “Amistad” it’s basically the Lanzmann debate where he argued, you know, one must only, with an event like this of of the Holocaust only should tell, have survivors tell sharing, telling their stories. “Schindler” you have the, the semi-naturalistic, although shot and black and white mostly. Reenactment of the event itself. So does one go more towards a naturalistic literal representation? Does one go more towards a documentary interview situation? Does one try to blend both? And of course, I agree, that all of it is about the motivation and the vision of the filmmaker, but I think there are profound questions because one then the question of morality, ethics of authenticity of documentary, filmic authenticity, but everything is still, is still a manufactured art artefact. And, and of course if the scripts are written.
I mean, the speech by the Colin Firth character, the, there’s no historical evidence that he said anything like this. And the Stuckart character, the same one with with blowing his nose in the German version, there’s no historical evidence that any of this happened, that he said any of this. In fact, Eichmann testified in the trial, the opposite. You know, Stuckard was surprisingly acquiescent. So I agree it’s all about the skill of the filmmaker, the editor and so on. All I’m trying to say is that what’s fascinating and profound is that these debates continue and every time we face it, we obviously ask the questions. You know, Anthony Sher with doing his film, his play “Primo” went into this enormous depth, how do you act on stage, Primo Levi, and so on. So, and I think it’s an incredibly powerful and rewarding challenge for any filmmaker or theatre maker.
There’s another brilliant play by my ex student Yael called, “He Went Quietly”, which interviews Duma Kumalo, who was on death row in, in Pretoria Central prison for being for, you know, anti-apartheid, et cetera. And, you know, literally survived the 1990 negotiations began just in time, et cetera, et cetera, he survived. Anyway, she did workshops, et cetera, creatively and so on. How to then show his life on stage and many, many others. To be witness, to represent. I just throw these questions out so we are aware, we are watching a filmic representation. We are not watching the real thing. I just think that’s an important notion to always be aware of and that’s why we chose to show the German and the BBC version.
- I agree with that. I just want to, as I said, I did make one point, and I want to make it again, is the notion that in the unusual thing, when you look at these sort of records throughout a few books which deal with this matter because the protocol was real, some of it did happen, of course it didn’t happen the words that we used, but there is, if both of the directors were clearly guided by what was in the protocol, which makes it somewhat unusual issue there, let me just carry on. Otherwise we’ll be helpful.
Yes, Sorel, I think we should be aware of the fictionality of the film. And I think I’ve answered that.
Q: Caroline, is there any danger that these films with first great smartly dressed and handsome actors could be used by the far right and anti-Semitic groups of their own purposes, David?
A: I think absolutely. Yes.
That, but you carry on.
Yes. I mean, we see, we see the, what I would call the costumes, but of course these are based on the uniforms, all the aesthetic representation from, from the uniforms to the boots to the costumes, to the way of the body walking, the body standing the way they’re sitting, moving, the very way they’re speaking and the language that they use and the rhythms of language I think absolutely are being mimicked. But I’ve, what I’ve watched, what I’ve seen so far on the far right in, in, not only in Germany, but in many countries around the world, far right have taken this and absorbed it as a model for them, if you like, as a model for contemporary aesthetics of fascism and how they incorporated that into their own expression. You know, and we’ve seen many images recently of historical and political events.
I think also the “1984” film was subjected to huge criticism by the German right. There’s all sorts of evidence of that, which indicated no, they, they certainly didn’t take it that way. They took it exactly the way in which David and I think have tried to present it. How did they dehumanise themselves remain in order to behave this way? Of course, that’s the fundamental question which we’ve thrown out and which we are going to debate further. And we hope that some of the points that we made with regard to the banality of evil and the balance of the evidence that I, we were suggesting is helpful in that direction. But we’ll come back to that.
Q: Margaret, do you think the lecturer at UCT quoted that Hitler not committed the crime, was basing his statement on the fact that Nazi context, they were acting within law?
A: Most certainly not. That was not his, if he had, he would’ve said so. That wasn’t at all what it is. We know that they’re huge amount of Holocaust deniers, when I’ve listened to the lecture and in fact it was quite clearly a justification. Well, white people do this all the time, why are you moaning about it? That was really the thrust of it. No, it was a straight denial of the, which is why it has got me ready as angry as I am. If you, Lucy, if you’re a dictator, even a big majority, you can just write the law you want. Well that depends.
That’s the whole, we had this debate about constitutional law and constitutionalism and whether to some extent, yes you can, you can produce all sorts of law, but two things, does a constitutional framework, or constitutional conventions, honour England in fact create guardrails that in which you can’t do that and we’ll debate that further. The Milgram statements and obedience to orders, yes, I accept that. But the point was that both Milgram and Zimbardo were then essentially used to support the proposition of the banality of evil. Hazel, Nothe, Milgram, and Zimbardo have not been replicated with similarly depressing results, to the contrary, there is a very comprehensive 2006 study. There are numerous other studies which have indicated that the methodology adopted there was seriously questionable. That does not mean that there isn’t a question of evil and torture of this kind. The real question is their studies themselves were not a sufficient explanation because of the inadequacies thereof. Leo-
David, David and Dennis. I just wanted to, sorry, I’m just, I just want to say that I have to jump off now and I just want to say thank you for an outstanding presentation. If you’ve got time-
Do you want us to end now?
No, no, no. I just have to jump. No, no, I just have to jump off. May I just make one comment, you know-
Yes.
About the lecture at UCT, which I was absolutely horrified to receive that app that I sent on to you as well, it’s not only about him, it’s about who, about who’s receiving that message.
No, that’s my point. I agree. That’s-
Exactly. You know, these are young, these are young students that have their, their professors that in awe, they’re listening to them, they’re taking on board what they saying. You know, these, their professors are creating primary belief systems for them. So that’s just my two cents worth to once again, wanted to say thank you-
No, you-
Very much.
So, you did write, and if I can just say this before you leave, this guy has an authoritarian character and a bully. I’ve spoken to some of my colleagues at UCT, we are talking about somebody who’s done this before. So, so I agree with you entirely and that’s an appropriate, sorry, Wendy, I just want to strange enough, Leon has asked, there are probably a number of UCT alumni. Is there any way that we can collectively join the concern that you raised? Could you lead such a communication university asking for a formal response from the vice chancellor? I am more than prepared to write to the vice council.
Yes, we can do that. My brother’s an alumni and I know that we are, we, we are involved in UCT as well.
Yeah
So I agree and I’m on board with that. Thank you very much. So I’m going to, to love and leave you all and say thank you very, very much for an outstanding, outstanding presentation. Very disturbing I have to say. But thank you.
I’m sorry to say I agree with you.
Thanks a lot.
Agreed. Wendy, thanks so much.
Take care.
See you tomorrow. Bye-Bye.
Bev asks David, it makes the point that German movie is more authentic. The English language beings read of English cultural politeness, one senses an appropriation or that this is science fiction. That German language eliminates any softening interface by language. As a first language English speaker, the German version provides an necessary perverse exoticism and otherness.
I think that’s a wonderful point, Bev, thank you. 'Cause I agree entirely. I think the German film is, is actually more authentic as I imagine it, the meeting might have happened. What you say about the language and the English cultural difference, I agree, I agree with you. And there is also the point with the representations of Heydrich and the Stanley Tucci character, the way he acts Eichmann is very powerful in the Branagh. And I think the Eichmann is better there. But I think all the other characters are far more, are far more feeling. My instinct is that they’re more authentic in the German version except for the Eichmann one that I agree with. The only other thing I would add in terms of the German version, there’s also a lot of it, it’s more chilling with the humour, the laughter, the camaraderie, the bon ami and that together with the business-like, corporate setting. And I think the English version lacks some of that.
Q: Melvin asked how much of the trial that are entertained in relation to the Eichmann trial.
A: Not a hell of a lot. I accept that and that’s one of the points that was made against it, we’ll talk about that. I’m trying to see if there’s any other ones here.
Q: Tony, with the commentary acknowledging a Nazi law enabled the upholding of immoral, inhuman treatment of citizens and how this said many similar noted aspects, the apartheid, should we not reflect on the logical extension of this reason by challenging ourselves on just how we forming the law in Israel with respect to all its resonance?
A: Well that debate Tony, and maybe we should have that debate. I have spoken about that in past, I’m not going to, I’m not going to follow up with that because I’ve spoken about that.
Myra, sorry Myrna. Myrna, the big question as to how someone who can kill a person in the morning or bright afternoon, now the Nazis execute 600 humans in the morning can be playful and loving with the family three hours. Then explain only by the dissociative process the mannequin petition itself cutting off for separating thoughts and feelings. We know a lot now about how this works with people who’ve been through trauma. Perhaps it applies to these actors on evil. Yes, that is true. But what was interesting, I haven’t got time to deal with it just recently in a series of stuff I’ve been reading, fascinating the extent to which neuroscience has now also given us quite a lot of guidance in regard. We can talk about that later.
Sorry, if I can just jump in here Dennis.
Ah, sure.
As Susan mentions a very good point. To me, the understatement of the BBC version is very powerful. It leaves the audience devastated by the normality or banality of the meeting. That’s absolutely true. And the Branagh character is much more charming because of that politeness, that banality, that that almost gentile calm that that the Branagh character exhibits. In the German version, he has a more ruthless charm, if you like. In the Branagh version, a more apparently chilling, considered thoughtful charm. So we get a cultural distinction in performance.
Q: Yeah, I agree. And then Gita, the stressing that you say the academic communities too petrified other than news fashion, on whom are you petrified?
A: I’m not particularly petrified Gita, but I’m afraid to tell you these days between Twitter, we’ve spoken about this before and the way in which people can be viciously attacked on Twitter called racist and essentially be called out and then find themselves actually losing their academic jobs, is not only true of South Africa, but all over the world. There is because of a cancel culture, and I’ve spoken about this before, a very serious pressure on people, whether they’re justified or not, but it’s understandable and people are not prepared to put their heads above the parapet. They want the quiet life.
Q: Cheryl, I’m not saying it’s right. I think it’s very distressing. Cheryl, this is for you David. What do you think about the story at the end of the British movie stating that when the hated object is gone, where does that leave the haters?
A: I think it’s a fantastic point. Well one can either say it’s going to be a bottomless pit and it’ll be filled by some, by some other group. You know, does hating exhaust itself or does it need to carry on? It finds, you know, another group whether they’re wearing orange shirts or green shirts or they’re tall or short or they’re bald or not. I mean, I don’t mean to be facetious or lighthearted at all, but how the hated group, you know, if it’s a principle, so okay, you, you ended with the one group, but then you move on with an next group or if it is so specific in this case with Jews or it goes on to Slavs or it would go onto others, had the war turned out very differently. It’s, I think it’s an end endless debate and we see it in ancient Greek theatre actually, and we see it in, well for, for me, in theatre literature that goes way back, you know, centuries, we, this is a fascinating dilemma. Can Macbeths ever stop himself? Would be another, another version of it. I’m so far steeped in blood that to go back would be more tedious than to carry on. So I’ll carry on. I’m just adapting from the great phrase of “Macbeth”’s.
- Lucy. I think what is nonsense is the fact that if you take morality and laws, this question of morality and law, and you argue that law has to have some defined moral content, a content which essentially as it overrides the law, so that you can’t, that that to be a law has to actually pass formal criteria and moral criteria, moral criteria, which we in a civilised fashion would regard as moral. If you wish, if you take that, that’s the great debate. In jurisprudence, it’s basically been the debate for 200 years. That is, there’s no specific moral content that some would argue that law requires in order to be law. Others say certainly after Nuremberg, some level of moral content was required for something to be called a law. So when you say there’s new draught legislation right to protest and some of the emergency COVID contained moral, ethical issues, to be sure no one’s suggesting that much law doesn’t contain, is not informed by a moral perspective of the world. What I’m suggesting is if the argument is that law inevitably is coupled to some moral framework and therefore has to meet two criteria, both moral and legal, I’m afraid that is so debatable that you cannot assert that it’s not a debate otherwise, in fact, you’re objecting great jurist like and Joseph Raz and many others. That’s the only point I wanted to make and just see if there’s anything else.
Q: The actual name of the German version David was, I think of the German film?
A: It’s the German phrase, but it, it’s basically in English, it’s called the Wannsee Conference. Anybody Googles it, German version of the Wannsee conference. It’s called, you know the the German word for conference and Wannsee. Yeah.
Yeah. By the way Clive, I agree with you asked Eugene Dako about his dissociation, see “A Human Being Died Last Night”. I’m actually be very keen that the author of that book actually come and talk to us. It’s a fascinating book and anybody who’s interested in processes of dissociation and the psychopathic personality and the perpetuation of murder that “A Human Being Died Last Night” is a very fine work, which should be read by all. Let me see if there’s anything else. No, I think we’re done basically, unless it’s-
Wonderful.
Yeah. Okay.
Thank you very much David and, and and Dennis and we’ll see everybody tomorrow for the gala.
Tomorrow night, we’ll see everybody.
Yes.
Tomorrow night, celebrate and let’s enjoy it. And thank you so much Dennis, Judy, and everybody.
And thank you to everybody for questions. Whether we disagree or-
Very much.
Debate continue.
We carry on debating.
Take care. Bye.
Take care.
Thanks everybody. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.