The Conference in Wannsee (20.01.1942)

The Conference in Wannsee – a meeting of representatives of the government of the Third Reich and SS officers, which took place on 20 January 1942 in a villa at Am Grossen Wannsee 56/58, located on the outskirts of Berlin Wannsee. It constituted a key element of the Holocaust plan that led to the murder of several million Jews in the lands occupied by Nazi Germany.

A total of 15 people took part in the conference:

Reinhard Heydrich (head of the Security Police and Security Service (SD), head of the Reich Main Security Office, Reich Protector in Office in Bohemia and Moravia, German - Chef des Reichssicherheitshauptamtes (RSHA), German: Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, Amtierender Reichsprotektor in Böhmen und Mähren)
Rudolf Lange (commander of the Security Police and SD in Latvia, German - Kommandeur der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD)
Eberhard Schöngarth (Security Police and SD, German - Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD)
Adolf Eichmann (Head of Unit IV B 4, Reich Main Security Office, German - Leiter Referat IV B 4 Reichssicherheitshauptamt)
Heinrich Müller (Head of Department IV of the Gestapo, Reich Main Security Office, German - Chef Amt IV Gestapo Reichssicherheitshauptamt)
Otto Hofmann (Main Office of Race and Settlement of the SS, German - Chef des SS-Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamtes)
Wilhelm Kritzinger (Chancellery of the Reich, German - Reichskanzlei)
Gerhard Klopfer (NSDAP Party Chancellery, German - Partei-Kanzlei der NSDAP)
Martin Luther (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, German- Auswärtiges Amt)
Josef Bühler (Government of the Governor General in Kraków, German - Regierung des Generalgouverneurs in Krakau)
Roland Freisler (Ministry of Justice, German - Staatssekretär Reichsjustizministerium)
Erich Neumann (Office of the Plenipotentiary for the Four-Year Plan, German - Amt des Beauftragten für den Vierjahresplan)
Wilhelm Stuckart (Reich Ministry of the Interior, German - Reichsministerium des Innern)
Georg Leibbrandt (Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, German - Reichsministerium für die besetzten Ostgebiete)
Alfred Meyer (Permanent Representative of the Reich Minister, Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, German - Ständiger Vertreter des Reichsministers, Reichsministerium für die besetzten Ostgebiete)

The meeting was chaired by SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich. Already in the summer of 1941, shortly after the Third Reich's invasion in the USSR, he received from the Reich Marshal (German - Reichsmarschall), Hermann Göring, power of attorney concerning the preparation of "a comprehensive solution to the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence in Europe" (German - "Gesamtlösung der Judenfrage im deutschen Einflußgebiet in Europa") or according to another phrase "the final solution of the Jewish question" (German - "Endlösung der Judenfrage").

About the conference in Wansee - a lecture by Professor Peter Klein from Touro College in Berlin.

Since the invasion in the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, the Operational Units of the Police and Security Service (the so-called Einsatzgruppen, from German Einsatzgruppen der Polizei und SD) carried out mass executions of the Jewish population. There was a massacre of 24,000 Jews in Kamieniec Podolski (27-28.08), a murder of more than 33,000 Jews in Babi Jar (29.09-03.10), an execution of approx. 30,000 Jews from the Riga ghetto (30.11 and 08.12). At the end of 1941, the construction of extermination camps in Bełżec and Sobibór began, and at the beginning of December 1941, the Kulmhof extermination camp in Chełmno nad Nerem began to operate. It is estimated that by the end of 1941, approx. 900 thousand Jews were murdered.

The meeting in Wannsee was intended to establish guidelines for further proceedings. It was about coordinating the activities of various government institutions, the authorities of the General Government and the police, so as to prevent possible friction concerning the implementation of the common goal, which was to murder European Jews. However, mass murders continued throughout German-occupied Eastern Europe.

The meeting in Wannsee was originally supposed to take place on 9 December 1941. However, the plan was changed. Precisely on 9 December, Adolf Hitler summoned high-ranking officials of the Third Reich to announce the decision of the United States to declare war on Japan. In the following days, the Third Reich declared war on the United States.

Therefore, the meeting concerning the "Jewish question" was postponed to 20 January 1942, at 12:00. The conference lasted about an hour and a half. Afterwards, the guests went to dinner. Thanks to the preserved protocol, drawn up by Eichmann, and later developed by Heydrich, it is known what topics were discussed during the meeting. Heydrich presented the current course of removing Jews from the "German space". Deportations included approx. 600 thousand Jews. The following step was to include the entire Europe in the plan concerning the "final solution of the Jewish question", i.e. according to Heydrich's estimates – approx. 11 million Jews. The protocol shows that the Jewish population was to be "deported to the East", which, as is known, in fact meant deportation to extermination camps.

The Wannsee findings became the basis for a criminal plan to genocide European Jews. In the spring of 1942, another extermination camp was established - Treblinka II. At the same time, "Operation Reinhardt" was launched, as part of which the Germans murdered more than 2 million Jews in the General Government. In total, as a result of the deliberate policy of the Third Reich, approx. 5–6 million European Jews were murdered.

References:

Gerlach Ch., Konferencja w Wannsee. Los Żydów niemieckich a polityczna decyzja Hitlera o wymordowaniu wszystkich Żydów Europy, "Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego" (1998), No. 1-2 (185-186), pp. 35-73.
Gerlach Ch., Krieg, Ernährung, Völkermord. Deutsche Vernichtungspolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg, Zürich-München 2001.
Gerlach Ch.,The Wannsee Conference. The fate of German Jews, and Hitler's decision in principle to exterminate all European Jews, "The Journal of modern history" 70 (1998), pp. 759-812.
Hilberg R., Zagłada Żydów europejskich, vol. 1-3, Warsaw 2014.
Nationalsozialistische Vernichtungspolitik 1939–1945, H. Ulrich, Frankfurt am Main 1998.
Roseman M., The Wannsee Conference and the final solution. A reconsideration, New York 2003.
Die Wannsee-Konferenz und der Völkermord an den europäischen Juden. Katalog der ständigen Ausstellung, Berlin 2008.