The Wannsee Conference

At the invitation of Reinhard Heydrich, Head of the Security Police and SD, a meeting of approximately 90 minutes took place in this room – the dining room of the villa – on the morning of 20 January 1942. The participants included representatives of the SS, the Nazi party and various Reich ministries. The subject of the meeting was the ”Final Solution of the Jewish Question”. Heydrich aimed to confirm his leadership role in the deportation of the European Jews, and also to involve important ministries and party offices in the preparations for the murder of the Jews. A further objective was to halt the conflict between the German civil administrations in occupied Poland and the Ostland and the SS leaders in these territories. The participants at the conference pledged the full cooperation of their respective ministries and departments. In doing so, the entire leadership level of the German state became an accomplice and an accessory to the crime.

Adolf Eichmann, Head of the Gestapo’s “Jewish section”, summed up the results of the discussion in a protocol. According to this protocol, Heydrich had told the participants that on the basis of a ”prior authorisation” by Hitler the deportation of all European Jews to eastern Europe was to commence forthwith. The participants only discussed certain specific matters. One contentious issue was the question whether the so-called “Mischlinge” (”persons of mixed blood”; those with both Christian and Jewish parents or grandparents) as well as Jewish partners in “mixed marriages” were to be included in the deportations. Heydrich failed in his vehement attempt to extend deportations to these groups. A decision on the question was postponed until future conferences.

From the conference protocol one can conclude that prior to the conference a decision had been taken at the highest levels of state leadership to extend the process of mass murder, which had already started in June 1941, through deportation to the systematic genocide of European Jews

9.1.

Instructions for Planning the Genocide of the European Jews

Following the attack on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, the Einsatzgruppen of the Reich Security Main Office began to murder the Jewish population there. Heydrich sought written legitimation – which was more influential than a command from Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler – for this and more far-reaching plans. On the evening of 31 July 1941 Heydrich presented a document compiled in his department to Hermann Göring for his signature. Göring had already put Heydrich in charge of forced emigration in January 1939. Göring was second from top in the National Socialist hierarchy. Adolf Hitler had granted him extensive powers, which included the coordination of all anti-Jewish measures. With Göring’s signature, Heydrich’s role in masterminding the monstrous killing programme was confirmed. The wording of the document allowed Heydrich to develop “the total solution” according to “the circumstances of the time”.

Heydrich used this document within the SS and vis-à-vis other authorities to legitimise his own leading role in the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” (a euphemism for the deportation and murder of all European Jews; “evacuation” meant deportation). All the participants invited to attend the Wannsee Conference by a circular letter of 29 November 1941 received a photocopy of this authorisation. Immediately after the Wannsee Conference of 20 January 1942, Heydrich sent copies to the regional commanders of the Security Police, SS Security Service (SD) and Einsatzgruppen. From there, copies were sent to the local commanders of the Security Police and Security Service.

Circular of 25 January 1942 from Heydrich with enclosed photocopy of Göring’s authorisation and the distribution list for “Ostland” prepared in Riga. In the last sentence, Heydrich makes an indirect reference to the Wannsee Conference held five days earlier.

(LVVA Riga)

9.2.

The Participants at the Conference

	Dr. Josef Bühler      State Secretary [Staatssekretär]      Government of the Governor General      in Cracow		Adolf Eichmann      Reich Security Main Office (RSHA)      Director of Section IV B 4
	Dr. Roland Freisler      State Secretary [Staatssekretär]      Reich Ministry of Justice		Reinhard Heydrich      Head of the Security Police and Security Service (SD)      and the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA)      Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia
	Otto Hofmann      Head of the SS Race and      Settlement Office		Dr. Gerhard Klopfer      Permanent Secretary {Ministerialdirektor]      Nazi Party Chancellery
	Wilhelm Kritzinger      Permanent Secretary {Ministerialdirektor]      Reich Chancellery		Dr. Rudolf Lange      Commander of Security Police and      Security Service (KdS)
	Dr. Georg Leibbrandt      Permanent Secretary {Ministerialdirektor]      Reich Ministry for the Occupied      Eastern Territories		Martin Luther      Undersecretary of State [Unterstaatssekretär]      Foreign Office
	Dr. Alfred Meyer      State Secretary [Staatssekretär]      Reich Ministry for the Occupied      Eastern Territories		Heinrich Müller      Reich Security Main Office (RSHA)      Head of Department [Amt] IV
	Erich Neumann      State Secretary [Staatssekretär]      Office of the Plenipotentiary for      the Four Year Plan		Dr. Eberhard Schöngarth      Commander in Chief of Security Police      and Security Service ( BdS)
	Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart      State Secretary [Staatssekretär]      Reich Ministry of the Interior		►  vitas of the Participants       as *pdf-file (122 KB)

After the Conference: Preparing the Deportations

At the end of January 1942 Adolf Eichmann sent express letters to all the relevant authorities in the German Reich, instructing them to prepare the deportation of the Jews. Eichmann gave detailed lists of the groups of persons to be deported and specified those who were to be initially exempt from deportation in accordance with the First Ordinance to the Reich Citizenship Law of 1935. These instructions from Eichmann, which were based on the results of the Wannsee Conference and took account of Heydrich’s failure to extend the groups of persons to be deported, marked the start of the preparations for the systematic process of deportation.

At two follow-up conferences chaired by Eichmann on 6 March 1942 and 27 October 1942 respectively, “specialists in Jewish matters” and experts from working groups established for this purpose discussed the means to achieve a “Solution to the Mischling Question” through sterilisation as well as the technically “correct way” to compulsorily dissolve “mixed marriages”. As Hitler could not come to a decision on this by the end of the war, the extremely radical measures planned for the Reich territory did not take place. These considerations did not apply to the occupied countries.

Express letter from Eichmann on the preparations for deportations from the German Reich, 31 January 1942

                    ►  English translation of the document:  click here  

Note by Franz Rademacher, Head of the Jewish section in the Foreign Office, on the follow-up conference, held in the RSHA on 6 March 1942 and chaired by Adolf Eichmann (PAA Berlin)
 

Ref.: LR Rademacher                                                             D. X III. 29. g.Rs.   [red stamp] Secret Reich matter Note               On 6 March I attended a meeting on further measures to deal with the Jewish question, held in the Reich Security Main Office. The aim of the meeting was to decide how each of the general guidelines drawn up at the “Meeting of State Secretaries” on 20 January 1942 were to be implemented in practical terms.                Particular difficulties were noted with regard to the question of sterilising the approximately 70,000 Mischlinge. The Reich Doctors’ Leaders said that this would entail 700,000 hospital days. In any case, on account of the wounded using the hospitals this procedure does not seem practicable during wartime.  Therefore, along with the envisaged solution found in section IV/l of the protocol of 20 January, the proposal should be made to group together all first-degree Mischlinge in a single town in Germany or the Generalgouvernement and to postpone the question of sterilisation until after the end of the war.             With regard to the question of mixed marriages addressed in sections IV/3 and IV/4, the proposal should be made to dissolve by law any marriages between persons of German blood and full Jews as well as childless marriages between Mischlinge and persons of German blood. The representative from the Ministry for Propaganda and I opposed the dissolution of marriages through a simple act of law for propaganda reasons. The representative of the Justice Ministry opposed it for general legal reasons. The final proposal is therefore to introduce a simplified form of divorce through jurisdiction on the request of the German-blooded person or the public prosecutor. In this process, the term Jew shall only be established by the higher State Police department responsible for Jewish affairs.               Copies for the attention of             Undersecretary of State Luther [handwritten signed by Luther]             Undersecretary of State Gaus [handwritten signed by Gaus]             Undersecretary of State Woermann [handwritten signed by Woermann]             State Secretary von Weizsäcker [crossed out]   Berlin, 7 March 1942   [handwritten signature] Rademacher

Text: Dr. Norbert Kampe
         Dr. Dr. Wolf-Dieter Mattausch

# to the top