I just realized Andor Season 2 has a reference to WWII (& it makes the show even darker)

Disney+'s Andor Season 2 premiered on April 22, 2025, with three episodes. Created by Tony Gilroy, the show follows the rebel spy Cassian Andor and the events leading to the 2016 film, Rogue One. What fascinated me was not just the plot, cast, or amazing background score, but the series' taking inspiration from real history — the most atrocious side of WWII.

Gilroy has never shied away from the brutal realities of fascism, but Season 2 takes the notion further, directly invoking one of history's most horrifying moments — The Holocaust.

The Star Wars franchise has borrowed several features of the Nazi Germany — for instance, the Stormtroopers (the loyal and elite shock troops of the Galactic Empire) mirror the SA or Sturmabteilung. Also called the stormtroopers, the Sturmabteilung were a paramilitary organisation (Brownshirts) vital to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the N*zi party. Sounds quite like the Star Wars' stormtroopers, right?

Andor Season 2's premiere recreated one of history's darkest moments: The 1942 Wannsee Conference where the N*zi officials planned the Holocaust (the upcoming Ghorman massacre on the show). What shocked me was not just the reference to fas*ism but how it mirrored the real-world genocide.

Andor Season 2 references the Wannsee Conference of WWII

In Andor Season 2 premiere episode, titled One Year Later, Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) gathers the Imperial officers in a secluded snowy mountain fortress to discuss the fate of Ghorman, a planet rich in a mineral called Kalkite. The meeting was shrouded in secrecy, as Krennic instructed:

"No notes, no records, none of you were here, nobody pust this intheir calender. All service and transport droids will be data wiped once we're done. Your collegaues, superior, if they were not in this room, they're not cleared for the project. Colonel Yularen, Governer Tarkin, all senior commanders will be notified by the Emperor at the time of his choosing.

Krennic continued:

Now the group in this room, in this moment is the tightest of closed circles. Any security violation will be brought to the Emperor's personal violation"

As a student of history, this scene did seem hauntingly similar. Director Krennic's verbatim felt like they were the echoes of Reinhard Heydrich's instruction at the Wannsee Conference.

For the unversed, the Wannsee Conference, took place on January 20, 1942, where 15 high ranking bureaucarts from the Nazi party and the German government gathered in secrecy in Wannsee, to discuss the fate of Jews — the Final Solution of the Jewish question. What followed next is no secret. It led to the Holocaust horrors: Mass deportation of the Jews to the concentration camps, systematic shootings, and the killing of millions in the gas chambers. This isn't just history but humanity's darkest chapter where around six million Jews lost their lives.

Coming back to Andor Season 2, Krannic revealed they needed Kalkite from Ghorman to make the Emperor's agenda, Energy Initiative (access to stable and unlimited power), successful. He continued:

"We will have to control Ghorman with a hand firm enough to silence any resistance, and you have been selected to help plan for that possibility. The suppression of Ghorman is not a decision to be taken lightly."

Suddenly, the Empire was not just a sci-fi villain but a Third Reich with starships. I was amazed by the parallels — The Ghormans and the Jews. The Ghormans were portrayed as tight-knit, industrious people (spider silk weavers). The Empire tagged the Ghormans as greedy and selfish, similar to how Nazis used propaganda against the Jews to turn the public opinion against them.

Tony Gilroy, Andor's showrunner, confirmed its reference to Wannsee in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. He said:

"Well the lighting of the flame in the very first episode where Krennic calls the meeting, that's the Wannsee Conference."

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Andor's chilling Wannsee moment doesn't simply reference history, it forces us to remember how genocide began with men in quiet rooms making monstrous decisions.

Also read: Andor Season 2 had a hidden easter egg that many did not notice

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