The Wannsee Conference

The Wannsee villa

The Wannsee Conference is one of the most notorious events of World War II. At the conference an estimate of the number of Jews in Europe was circulated: 11 million in total.

What was to happen to them?

On 20 January 1942 a number of high-ranking men from the Nazi state- and security apparatuses gathered together, under the direction of the Chief of Security Police, Reinhard Heydrich, in order to discuss ‘the Final Solution to the Jewish Question’. As a result of this meeting, Heydrich received the full backing from the participants to carry out the systematic extermination of the European Jews. The decision itself, to exterminate the Jews, was presumably taken before the conference was held.

From this it appears that certain systematic murders of Jews took place starting in the autumn of 1941. It was not a coordinated effort, where everybody followed the same centrally formulated directives. It has been calculated that as much as 1 million Jews were murdered before the Wannsee Conference took place. The first time the concept ‘The Final Solution to the Jewish question’ (German: Endlösung) was in Hermann Göring’s authorisation to Reinhard Heydrich, dated 31 July 1941. In this brief statement, Nazi Germany’s second-in-command confirmed Heydrich’s status as the man in charge of the regime’s Jewish policies. Göring’s authorisation thus constituted the formal basis for Heydrich’s ability to call the Wannsee Conference. At the time of Göring’s confirmation of Heydrich’s authority in matters concerning the Jews the extermination of the Jews had already begun. It is highly probable that Heydrich therefore wished to have for instance the murder raids of the Einsatzgruppen, which had started a month earlier, legitimised. Another important reason for the holding of the Wannsee Conference was the status of the war. The merciless war against the Soviet Union had not progressed as planned, although the Germans had conquered vast territories from the Soviets by the end of 1941. The plans for a solution to the ‘Jewish question’, which had circulated earlier, had all presupposed a prompt victory over the Soviet Union. When this seemed to fail – and the Germans could look forward to a prolonged war in the east – the plans for the Jews had to be revised.

It was the Chief of Security Police, Reinhard Heydrich, who called the Wannsee Conference. Apparently, Heydrich had four purposes with this:

• First of all to have his absolute authority in all Jewish matters in all countries under German rule underlined and understood by the participants. This Heydrich already did by attaching Göring’s authorisation to the invitations to the conference.
• Second, Heydrich wished to inform the participants of the plans for the Jews in the German-controlled areas.
• Third, he was anxious to receive the full cooperation of the participants in the solution to the ‘Jewish Question’.
• Finally, it was Heydrich’s intention to determine which Jews were to be included in the ‘Final Solution’. In other words: who were to die and who were to live? This question was clearly the most complicated, because it implied a discussion of the fate of the so-called ‘half-Jews’ and ‘quarter-Jews’.

The Chief of the Security Police, Reinhard Heydrich (1904-42) in Gestapo's headquarters, USHMM #79522

When the conference finally took place, after being postponed six weeks, its purpose had perhaps been slightly altered. New research into the subject seems to propose that Hitler, in the beginning of December 1941, took the decision to exterminate all European Jews. It has to be said that this interpretation is highly debated among historians. Hitler’s decision was something new. Up until then, it had “only” been the Soviet Jews that could expect this dreadful fate, but now this was supposed to happen to all Jews in the German-controlled areas. In relation to the Wannsee Conference this meant that:

• It has to be discussed how the different countries would react to the fact that their Jewish populations were to be deported,
• The German Jews no longer were exempt from extermination, and that the deportation of them to the east had to be planned.

The participants

Adolf Eichmann (1906-62), USHMM #74907

The participants at the Wannsee Conference were all high-ranking members of the Nazi machinery of power, in the layer just below the very top. None of the participants could at this time have been unknowing about the fact that the regime was systematically exterminating Soviet Jews – and that an expansion of the number of victims was planned. The invited men were present in order to discuss the principles for the ‘Finals Solution of the Jewish question’, not in order to go through practical details. Many of the participants were probably preoccupied with the fate of the German Jews and no particular interest in what was to happen to the eastern European Jews.

The participants can be divided into two groups:

The first group consisted of five representatives from Heydrich’s own organisation, namely the SS:

The most important group, however, were the high-ranking civil servants from the Nazi state apparatus:

It was originally planned that the conference was to take place on 9 December 1941, but only the day before the conference was suddenly postponed indefinitely. Historians have tried to explain this in several ways, but likely the most important reason was the United States’ entry into the war. The Japanese, who were Germany’s allies, attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. Following this, Hitler declared war on the United States in a speech to the German Reichstag on 11 December – an important event, where Heydrich as a member of the Reichstag necessarily had to be present. This was probably the case for several of the other participants as well.

The progress of the Wannsee Conference appears from the minutes, the so-called ‘protocol’, which was written by Adolf Eichmann. The language in the protocol was consciously manipulated. Expressions like ‘extermination’, ‘murder’, ‘deportation’, and etc. were not used. In stead the protocol speaks of ‘natural reduction of population’, ‘special treatment’ and ‘immigration’.

The most important elements of the conference were:

• Heydrich wnt through the status of the solution to the Jewish question. In doing so, he emphasised his own organisation’s results. He also re-emphasised that he had been chosen by Göring to be responsible for the final solution to the Jewish question.
• None of the participants had anything to say against the idea that all European Jews were to be included in the extermination programme, neither for practical or moral reasons. On the contrary, the representative from the Foreign Ministry, Martin Luther, promised to assist in convincing Germany’s allies to cooperate.
• The representatives from the General Government and the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories were very eager to have the Final Solution commencing in their respective areas. In reality, Joseph Bühler from the General Government had been sent to the conference by his superior, Hans Frank, with the sole purpose of securing that the Polish Jews disappear as fast as possible.

• The only point in dispute was the fate of the German Jews. Heydrich proposed that all classes of Jews were to be included in the Final Solution, which meant including even half-Jews and quarter-Jews, but this was unacceptable to the representative from the Interior Ministry, Wilhelm Stuckart. In actual fact this problem was never solved, not even later in the war.

© 2002 by Peter Vogelsang & Brian B. M. Larsen. All rights reserved