Wannsee Conference
Meeting held at a lakeside villa in Wannsee, Berlin, on January 20, 1942,
whose purpose was to discuss and coordinate the "Final Solution" to the
"Jewish Problem"---the mass extermination of all European Jewry.
The Wannsee Conference was organized by Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich
HIMMLER'S
deputy and head of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security
Main Office, or RSHA). The attendees included the state secretaries of those
German government offices that carried out Hitlers anti-Jewish policies, and
some
SS
leaders. Adolf Eichmann, the director of Heydrich's Jewish office,
was one of those included; he later wrote the conference report. At the
meeting Heydrich announced that the official policy of the German
government regarding the Jews would be total annihilation. The men invited to
the meeting all knew about the Jewish policy; they were either involved in or
directly aware of the murder of Jews already taking place across Europe. The
question at hand was not whether to implement the policy, but how to
implement it.
In July 1941 Hermann Goering had ordered Heydrich to coordinate a plan
for the "Final Solution." Heydrich's Einsatzgruppen had been murdering
Russian Jews by firing squad since the war against the Soviets broke out in
1941. However, this was not a suitable way to kill the Jews outside the war
zone. Thus, Heydrich had to create something new. In November
extermination camps in Chelmno and Belzec were already being built with
facilities for murder by poison.
The Wannsee Conference was originally called for December 9, but was pushed off
until January 20, 1942. Heydrich opened the conference with a long speech. He first
repeated that he had authorization from Goering to coordinate the "Final Solution."
Then he reviewed the Nazis' previous, temporary solution to the Jewish problem - the
forced emigration of Jews from the areas under German control, until Himmler
forbade any more emigration in the fall of 1941. Next, he announced the new policy
that was taking the place of emigration: the "Final Solution." The program would
begin with the "evacuation of the Jews to the East," a thinly veiled term for
deportation of the Jews to camps. This phase would include all "11 million" Jews in
Europe, even those living in countries not yet occupied by the Germans. However, the
camp phase was only to be a temporary one, which would lead finally to the
annihilation of all European Jewry. He allowed that the strong and healthy Jews
would be used as laborers, but that most would not survive. Heydrich concluded his
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speech by describing some of the specific problems facing the program, such as what
to do with Jews in mixed marriages and their part-Jewish children. The attendees
spent much time discussing this issue. Different possible solutions were mentioned,
but nothing was decided, so the problems were discussed at two later conferences in
March and October 1942.
The next part of the meeting was less structured. The attendees drank and
discussed the general issues at hand. At some point, they got down to the
business of suggesting various methods of mass destruction. At his war
crimes trial in Jerusalem, Eichmann testified that "during the conversation,
they minced no words about it at all. They spoke about methods of killing,
about liquidation, about extermination." At that stage of the war, the Germans
still had little experience in mass murder on such a large scale.
Heydrich closed the meeting with an appeal for cooperation among the
participants. Afterwards, Heydrich seemed satisfied that all had gone
according to plan, and that the government secretaries were in full agreement
about what had to be done. Soon after the Wannsee Conference, the
construction of the rest of the extermination camps began.
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