Seventy-five years ago, on 20 January 2017, a plan was created that paved the way for the killing of several million Jews on the territories occupied by the Third Reich.

Wannsee is a picturesque suburb of Berlin. Since the 19th century, well-off Berliners had built elegant villas there to relax after a week of absorbing work in the German capital. In one of those villas, at 56/58 Am Grossen Wannsee, Third Reich government officials and SS officers met on 20 January 1942. A total of 15 people gathered there, including:

• Reinhard Heydrich (head of the Security Police and Security Service (SD), Director of the Reich Main Security Office, Acting Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, in German: Chef des Reichssicherheitshauptamtes (RSHA), Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, Amtierender Reichsprotektor in Böhmen und Mähren)
• Dr Rudolf Lange (commander of the Security Police and SD in Latvia, in German: Kommandeur der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD)
• Dr Eberhard Schöngarth (Security Police and SD, in German: Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD)
• Adolf Eichmann (Head of Referat IV B4, Reich Main Security Office, in German: Leiter Referat IV B 4 Reichssicherheitshauptamt)
• Heinrich Müller (Chief of Gestapo Department IV, Reich Main Security Office, in German: Chef Amt IV Gestapo
  
  Reichssicherheitshauptamt)
• Otto Hofmann (SS Race and Settlement Main Office, in German: Chef des SS-Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamtes)
• Wilhelm Kritzinger (Reich Chancellery, in German: Reichskanzlei)
• Gerhard Klopfer (NSDAP Party Chancellery, in German: Partei-Kanzlei der NSDAP)
• Martin Luther (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in German: Auswärtiges Amt)
• Dr Josef Bühler (General Government in Krakow, in German: Regierung des Generalgouverneurs in Krakau)
• Dr Roland Freisler (Ministry of Justice, in German: Staatssekretär
  
  Reichsjustizministerium)
• Erich Neumann (Office of the Representative for the Four Year Plan), in German: Amt des Beauftragten für den Vierjahresplan)
• Dr Wilhelm Stuckart (Reich Ministry of Interior, in German: Reichsministerium des Innern)
• Dr Georg Leibbrandt (Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, in German: Reichsministerium für die besetzten Ostgebiete)
• Dr Alfred Meyer (Permanent Representative of the Reich Minister, Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, in 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, soon after the Third Reich's invasion of the USSR, he received from Reich Marshal (Reichsmarschall) Hermann Göring a mandate to prepare a "comprehensive solution of the Jewish question in the German zone of influence in Europe" (in German: “Gesamtlösung der Judenfrage im deutschen Einflußgebiet in Europa”), alternatively worded as "the final solution of the Jewish question" (in German: “Endlösung der Judenfrage”).

Since the invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, Police and Security Service Operational Units (the so-called Einsatzgruppen, in German: Einsatzgruppen der Polizei und SD) carried out mass executions of the Jewish population. They included the massacre of 24,000 Jews in Kamieniec Podolski (27-28 Aug) the killing of over 33,000 Jews in Babi Yar (29 Sept - 3 Oct) and the execution of about 30,000 Jews from the Riga ghetto (30 Nov and 8 Dec). In the late 1941, the construction of death camps in Bełżec and Sobibór began and the Kulmhof death camp in Chełmno nad Nerem became operational in early December 1941. It is estimated that about 900,000 Jews were killed by the end of 1941. 

The Wannsee meeting was to set out guidelines for further action. The aim was to coordinate operations of various government institutions, the General Government authorities and the police in order to eliminate potential frictions when pursuing the common goal of wiping out European Jews. However, mass killings were already being carried out on the whole territory of German-occupied Eastern Europe.

Initially, the Wannsee meeting was to be held on 9 December 1941. However, the plan was changed. On 9 December Adolf Hitler summoned the Third Reich's senior officials to announce the United States' declaration of war on Japan. In the next days, the Third Reich declared war on the United States.

So the meeting devoted to the "Jewish question" was rescheduled to 20 January 1942 at 12 noon. The conference lasted about an hour and a half. When it ended, the guests went for lunch. Thanks to the minutes taken by Eichmann and edited later by Heydrich, we know what subjects were discussed during the meetings. Heydrich presented the to-date progress of eradicating Jews from the "German space". Some 600,000 Jews had been deported.  The next step was to extend the "final solution of the Jewish question" plan to the whole of Europe, that is about 11 million Jews, according to Heydrich's estimations. The minutes state that the Jewish population was to be "deported East" which, as we know, in reality meant transportation to death camps.

The Wannsee arrangements formed the basis for the sinister plan to exterminate European Jews. In the spring of 1942 another death camp, Treblinka II, was built. At the same time "Operation Reinhard" was launched in which the Germans killed more than 2 million Jews in the General Government. In total, about 5 to 6 million of European Jews were killed as a result of the Third Reich's deliberate policy.      

*

Since 1992, the villa houses the museum House of the Wannsee Conference. Memorial and Educational Site (in German: Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz. Gedenk- und Bildungsstätte). A core exhibition devoted to the conference and particular stages of Nazi Germany's extermination policy has been prepared for visitors. Temporary exhibitions are also organised there. The museum offers a broad range of educational programmes. A multimedia library is also available on the site. Archive documents related to the Wannsee conference and the Holocaust are available at House of the Wannsee Conference.