House of the Wannsee Conference
THE SECRET „WANNSEE INSTITUTE”
OF THE SD (SECURITY SERVICE)
IN THE VILLA OPPENHEIM AM GROSSEN WANNSEE 43-45
From 1937 on, an office of the Security Service of the SS (SD) was established in the seized villa of the family of Franz Oppenheim, Am Großen Wannsee 43-45, who by then had emigrated. In January 1937, the Secret State Police (Gestapo) had confiscated a specialist library of the University of Breslau with literature about the Soviet Union and had placed it into the Villa Oppenheim.
The villa Oppenheim,
around 1906/07
There it became the basic foundation for a secret research institute of the Security Service (SD) for the eastern territories. This establishment - referred to within the SD only as „Wannsee Institute“ - was officially disguised as „Institute for Research of Antiquity“, and was attached to the University of Berlin. The requisite and very expensive reconstruction of the Villa Oppenheim essential for housing the Institute there in 19.....was initially financed by money from the SD’s „Jew-Account“ , a bank account which the SD had set up with funds from confiscated Jewish property.
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On the instructions of the Reichsführer SS, Heinrich Himmler, the Institute published appraisals and monthly reports about the Soviet Union in preparation for its ultimate conquest, domination and economic exploitation. In 1940, the Institute became subordinate to the intelligence service for foreign countries (Auslands-Nachrichtendienst).The Institute also took possession of part of the Oppenheim’s park situated on the site of the property Zum Heckeshorn 16/18. It can be presumed that with the huge antennas installed there, Soviet Russian radio transmissions as well as radio broadcasts were intercepted.
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In 1937, the SD ‘s Department Head Franz Alfred Six had the agricultural expert Michael Achmetell, originally from Georgia, transferred to Berlin where he was put in charge of the recently created „Wannsee Institute“. By way of gratitude, Achmetell dedicated to him one of his books about agriculture which was published under a pseudonym.
Achmetell was given a professorship at the University of Berlin where he recruited from among his students assistants for the secret Wannsee Institute. These assistants were admitted to the SS and wore the uniform of the SD ( which was recognizable by the SD insignia at the collar). For reasons of camouflage, work at Wannsee could only be conducted in civilian clothes. Many of these assistants were foreign-born Germans, frequently from the Baltic states or from parts of the former Russian empire, all with appropriately desirable language abilities.
Students at the "Wannsee
Institute"
During the annexation of Austria („Anschluß“) and the destruction of Czechoslovakia, the Institute was given „special tasks.“ During the attack on Poland, the special knowledge of some of the assistants was utilized. Several of them were attached to Special Units (Einsatzgruppen) of the SD, or were taking part in organizing the „resettlements“ from the Baltic states. In the course of such „resettlements,“ the SS murdered not only Jews but also patients in psychiatric clinics in order to create space for those who had been „resettled.“
During the war against the Soviet Union, the Institute provided appraisals designed to serve the domination of the „Eastern Territory.“ Assistants from the Institute continued to be assigned to the „Special Units“ of the SD. When in 1943 the Institute was moved to Plankenwarth Palace near Graz, other „work relating to the East“ (Ostarbeit) was done in the Villa on the Wannsee: maps were drawn for warfare, and targets for air attacks were selected and assembled. Moreover, acts of sabotage against the Soviet Union were prepared here as well.
Under the cover name „Enterprise Zeppelin,“ plans were worked on at Wannsee to train suitable captured anti-Bolshevik Red Army soldiers as agents and saboteurs. They were to instigate uprisings behind the Soviet Russian frontlines.
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Update: 20 August 2004
