Wannsee, Berlin, January 20, 1942

The Wannsee Conferencee was a meeting held at a villa in Wannsee, Berlin, on January 20, 1942 to discuss and to coordinate the implementation of the "Final Solution." Heinrich Himmler's deputy and head of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office: RSHA), Reinhard Heydrich, invited the state secretaries of the most important German government ministries to attend the meeting. While Heydrich, as well as his Jewish expert, Adolf Eichmann, chaired consultations on Jewish policy both before and after the Wannsee conference, this particular meeting was noteworthy for two reasons. First, it was the only one to involve the broad participation of such prominent members of the ministerial bureaucracy. Second, it was the point at which Adolf Hitler's decision to solve the so-called Jewish question through systematic mass murder was officially transmitted to this bureaucracy, whose participation was deemed necessary. It was not a meeting at which this decision was debated, but rather one at which the participants discussed the implementation of a decision already taken.

July 31, 1941, Heydrich met with Hermann Goering

On July 31, 1941, Heydrich met with Hermann Goering, the titular head for the coordination of Nazi Jewish policy. Heydrich brought for Goering's signature a document authorizing him to undertake preparations for a "total solution" to the Jewish question in Europe. Heydrich was to coordinate the activities of all the agencies of the German government whose jurisdiction was involved and subsequently to submit the "overall plan" for the "final solution to the Jewish question."

At this time, Heydrich's Einsatzgruppen were already engaged in the mass murder of Russian Jews by firing squads, but this method was clearly unsuitable for European Jewry outside the war zone. In the months following the July authorization, therefore, Heydrich's experts considered other options. Deportations of Jews from Germany began in mid-October 1941 and by November the construction of extermination camps with poison-gas facilities had begun at Chelmno and Belzec. In late November Heydrich issued invitations to the state secretaries for a meeting on December 9, but it was subsequently postponed until January 20, 1942. The invitations included a copy of Heydrich's authorization from Goering.

Invitees clearly aware Nazi regime engaged in mass murder

By the time of the meeting, most of the invitees were clearly aware that the Nazi regime was engaged in the mass murder of Jews. State Secretary Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart of the Interior Ministry had already discussed with his Jewish expert, Dr. Dernard Losener, the massacre of German Jews deported to Riga and had assured him that all this took place "on the highest orders." Dr. Josef Buhler, state secretary of the Generalgouvernement had already traveled to Berlin for consultations in mid-December, after which his superior, Hans Frank, had announced quite openly to his leading officials in Poland that they "must destroy the Jews." Under Secretary Martin Luther of the German Foreign Office had already sent his Jewish expert, Franz Rademacher, to Serbia in October 1941 to facilitate a "local solution to the Jewish question" there through mass murder. He had also circulated copies of Heydrich's Einsatzgruppen reports on the mass murder of Russian Jewry to numerous Foreign Office officials. Gauleiter Alfred Meyer and Reichsamtsleiter Dr. Georg Leibbrandt were state secretary and chief of the political division, respectively, of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (Ostministerium). Leibbrandt had already been involved in correspondence concerning whether all Jews in the eastern territories were to be killed, regardless of sex, age, and economic considerations,. The upshot of the correspondence was quite simply that economic interests were to be disregarded on principle in the solution to the "Jewish question." Representing the Justice Ministry was State Secretary Dr. Rroand Freisler, the subsequent "hanging judge" of the notorious People's Court (Volksgerichtshof). Assistant Secretary Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger, reputedly one of the best-informed people in Nazi Germany, represented the Reich Chancellery. Dr. Erich Neumann was present as state secretary of Goering's Four-Year Plan office.

Various SS leaders were also in attendance

Various SS leaders were also in attendance: Heinrich Muller of the Gestapo: Otto Hofmann of the SS Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt (SS Race and Resettlement Main Office: RuSHA): Dr. Karl Eberhard Schongarth of the SS und Polizei (SS and Police) in Poland: Dr. Rudolf Lange of Einsatzgruppe A in the Baltic: SS-Oberfuhrer Gerhard Klopfer, state secretary of Martin Bormann's Party Chancellery: and of course Heydrich and his Jewish expert, Eichmann. No fewer than eight of the fifteen participants held Ph.D. degrees. Since most either had been involved in or had direct knowledge of the extensive massacres of Jews that had already taken place, Heydrich was not speaking to the uninitiated.

Heydrich opened the conference

The January 20 meeting was held at the villa Am Grossen Wannsee 56 - 58, a former Interpol property that had been confiscated by the SS. Heydrich opened the conference with a long speech, based in large part on materials that Eichmann had compiled for him. In the first part of the speech, Heydrich reiterated his authority from Goering to coordinate - without regard to geographic boundaries - a "Final Solution" to the Jewish question and reviewed the policy of emigration that had led to the exit of 537,000 Jews from the German sphere until Himmler had forbidden further emigration in the fall of 1941.

Heydrich then made the transition to the second section of his speech. "In place of emigration, the evacuation of the Jews to the east has now emerged, after the appropriate prior approval of the Fuhrer, as a further possible solution." A total of eleven million European Jews, including even those from Ireland and England, would be involved, according to Heydrich. The evacuations, however, were to be regarded "solely as temporary measures," for "practical experiences" were already being gathered that would be of great significance for the "imminent Final Solution of the Jewish question." Heydrich then went on to explain just what he meant by this. The Jews would be utilized for labor in the east. "Separated by sex, the Jews capable of work will be led into these areas in large labor columns to build roads, whereby a large part will doubtless fall away through natural diminution. The remnant that finally survives all this, because here it is undoubtedly a question of the part with the greatest resistance, will have to be treated accordingly, because this remnant, representing a natural selection, can be regarded as the germ cell of a new Jewish reconstruction if released." Despite the euphemisms - separation of sexes, labor utilization leading to large-scale natural diminution, and, finally, appropriate treatment of the surviving remnant that could not be released to begin a renewal of the Jewish race - the genocidal implications were totally and unmistakably clear. If most of those attending the conference already knew that Jews were being killed in large numbers, they now had no further doubts about the intended scope of this murderous policy: it aimed at killing every last Jew in Europe, form Ireland to the Urals and from the Arctic to the Mediterranean.

Heydrich then moved into the third section of his speech, discussing some of the specific problems that would have to be dealt with. He proposed an old people's ghetto to ward off anticipated interventions over individual cases, and the sending of Jewish advisers to certain satellite countries to make preparations. But for Heydrich the most complex problem involved the fate of Jews in mixed marriages and their part-Jewish offspring. A major portion of the conference was spent exploring this problem and it was only at this point that animated discussion began. Heydrich wanted to deport half Jews - that is, kill them - but to equate quarter Jews with Germans, provided neither their appearance nor their behavior was markedly Jewish. Jews in mixed marriages would either be deported to the east or sent to the old people's ghetto on a case-by-case basis, depending on the anticipated effect on the German relatives. Stuckart of the Interior Ministry pressed for compulsory sterilization of the half Jews rather than deportation, while Hofmann proposed giving the half Jews a choice between deportation and sterilization. To avoid endless administrative problems over mixed marriages, Stuckart also proposed compulsory divorce. These issues were not resolved and were the subject of two further conferences in March and October 1942.

Thereafter, the discussion became quite freewheeling and unstructured. As Eichmann - who was sitting in the corner and supervising the stenotypists - related at his trial in Jerusalem, the conference had two parts, "the first part where everyone was quiet and listened to the various lectures, and then in the second part, everyone spoke out of turn and people would go around, butlers, adjutants, and would give out liquor. Well, I don't want to say that there was an atmosphere of drunkenness there. It was an official atmosphere, but nevertheless it was not one of those stiff, formal official affairs where everyone spoke in turn. But people just talked at cross vertices." Neumann asked that Jews important to the war economy not be deported until they could be replaced and Heydrich concurred. Buhler, on the other hand, urged that the "Final Solution" begin in the Generalgouvernement, because there was no transportation problem there and most of the Jews there were already incapable of work. "He had only one request, that the Jewish question in this region be solved as quickly as possible."

Disussion of various types of possible solutions

At this point the protocol notes cryptically: "Finally there was a discussion of the various types of possible solutions." On Heydrich's instructions, Eichmann did not include the details of this portion of the meeting in the protocol, but in Jerusalem he testified as follows: "These gentlemen were standing together, or sitting together, and were discussing the subject quite bluntly, quite differently from the language that I had to use later in the record. During the conversation they minced no words about it at all . . . they spoke about methods of killing, about liquidation, about extermination."

At this time, of course, the Germans were still unsure about methods, The gas vans at Chelmno had only been in operation for six weeks. The camp at Belzec, with gas chambers utilizing carbon monoxide from the exhaust gas of an engine, was still under construction. In the main camp at Auschwitz experiments with Zyklon B pellets in Bunker 11 and in the crematorium had been undertaken in the fall of 1941. But the first farmhouse converted into a gas chamber at Birkenau was just being prepared for use. Beyond the Euthanasia Program in Germany and the gas vans at Chelmno, the Nazis as yet had little experience in mass murder through gassing on the scale that would be required for the "Final Solution." The technological methods could not yet be taken for granted.

Heydrich closed the conference

Heydrich closed the conference with a plea for the cooperation of all the participants. Eichmann later estimated that the whole meeting had taken between an hour and an hour and a half. Not everyone left immediately, however; some stood around in small groups "to discuss the ins and outs of the agenda and also of certain work to be undertaken afterward." In these more intimate circumstances, Heydrich "gave expression to his great satisfaction" and allowed himself a glass of cognac, though it was unusual for him to drink in front of others. He had cause for his satisfaction. As Eichmann recalled, Heydrich "more than anybody else (had) expected considerable stumbling blocks and difficulties." Instead he had found "an atmosphere not only of agreement on the part of the participants, but more than that, one could feel an agreement that had assumed a form which had not been expected." The state secretaries of the ministerial bureaucracy had not only not made difficulties, they were committed and enthusiastic about doing their part.

Following the conference, Eichmann prepared the protocol, which both Muller and Heydrich edited several times before approving it. Thirty copies were made, but only one, the sixteenth, was found after the war. It is presently kept in the archives of German Foreign Office in Bonn.

Courtesy of:
"Encyclopedia of the Holocaust"
©1990 Macmillan Publishing Company
New York, NY 10022