Wannsee Conference

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Villa of the Wannsee Conference, Am Großer Wannsee 56/58 (2014)

Fifteen high-ranking representatives of the National Socialist Reich government and the SS authorities met at the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942 in a villa on the Großer Wannsee in Berlin , chaired by SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich in his capacity as Chief of the Security Police (SiPo) and the Security Service of the Reichsfuhrer SS (SD) to organize in detail the Holocaust that had begun against the Jews and to coordinate the cooperation of the authorities involved.

Commission from Hermann Göring to Reinhard Heydrich on July 31, 1941
A document of the Wannsee Conference; here the prepared list of the Jewish population in Europe.

Contrary to popular belief, the main purpose of the conference was not to decide on the Holocaust - this decision had actually already been taken with the mass murders that had taken place in areas occupied by the German Reich since the attack on the Soviet Union (June 22, 1941) - but rather the deportation of the entire population to organize the Jewish population of Europe for extermination in the East and to ensure the necessary coordination. The participants determined the timeline for the further mass killings, increasingly expanded the designated groups of victims and agreed to work together under the leadership of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), which Heydrich led.

Heydrich was commissioned by Hermann Göring on July 31, 1941 with the overall organization of the " Final Solution to the Jewish Question ". In December 1941, Heydrich issued invitations to the top-secret conference, which was attended by state secretaries from various Reich ministries and the General Government , a ministerial director of the Reich Chancellery , and senior officials from the Main Office of the Security Police , the Security Service, and the Party Chancellery . SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Adolf Eichmann , Heydrich 's advisor for “Jewish affairs” , was the recorder .

The term "Wannsee Conference", coined only after the Second World War , arose from the conference venue, the guest house of the security police and the security service , Am Großer Wannsee 56/58. The former Villa Marlier in Berlin-Wannsee was built in 1914/1915 according to plans by Paul Otto August Baumgarten . Today the house is a memorial to the Holocaust .

prehistory

National Socialist "Jewish Policy"

Anti -Semitism was one of the central components of National Socialist ideology, which determined Nazi politics. Already in his work Mein Kampf , Adolf Hitler propagated ideas aimed at the extermination of the Jews.

On January 30, 1939, in a Reichstag speech, Hitler announced for the first time "the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe" in the event of war. This is what Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels referred to in an article for Das Reich on December 16, 1941:

“We are currently experiencing the fulfillment of this prophecy and a fate is being fulfilled for Judaism that is hard, but more than deserved. Pity or even regret is completely inappropriate.”

In 1942 Hitler spoke publicly about his threat and its realization five times, most recently on November 8, 1942:

"You will still remember the Reichstag session in which I said: If Jewry imagines that it can bring about an international world war to exterminate the European races, then the result will not be the extermination of the European races, but the extermination of Jewry in be Europe. They always laughed at me as a prophet. Countless numbers of those who laughed then are no longer laughing, and those who are laughing now may not be doing so for some time to come.”

The intended goals and results of Nazi policy towards the Jews were thus evident. Nonetheless, details of the decision-making process that ultimately led to the Holocaust are poorly documented. The exact course of this process within the Nazi regime is still unclear in many details and is still being intensively discussed in Holocaust research.

The Decision on the Holocaust

The documents that have been preserved include Göring's order to Heydrich to draw up an "overall draft" regarding costs, organization and implementation for the "final solution to the Jewish question". It was issued on July 31, 1941, five weeks after the attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, which brought millions of Jews within reach of the Nazi regime.

In the first months of the German-Soviet war , leading officials of the Nazi regime repeatedly made statements that suggested the planned genocide . This is taken as an indication that the final decisions that led to the Holocaust must have been made in the fall of 1941. Thus, on December 12, 1941, Hitler assembled the Reichs- and Gauleiter of the NSDAP in his private rooms in the Reich Chancellery. Goebbels wrote about this in his diary:

"Regarding the Jewish question, the Führer is determined to come clean. […] The world war is here, the annihilation of Jewry must be the necessary consequence.”

Four days later, on December 16, 1941, Goebbels published the above-cited article in Das Reich .

Some historians regard Hitler's Gauleiter conference on December 12 as the latest date on which the decision to systematically exterminate the Jews was made. Others doubt that there was ever a specific point in time when such a decision was made and a corresponding Führer order was issued. They lead to this, e.g. a quote from the minutes of the Wannsee Conference: Instead of being forced to emigrate, "after prior approval by the Führer, the evacuation of the Jews to the East" came as a possible solution. A formal decision to genocide, the murder of all Jews, was not given; Hitler was reluctant to commit himself and was only the "legitimating authority" in a progressive radicalization process that accumulated through local initiatives, self-inflicted supposed constraints and eliminatory anti-Semitism.

However, most historians conclude from the sources that a crucial step in the decision-making process on genocide was taken in late autumn 1941. At that time, the failure of the war against the Soviet Union, which had begun as a blitzkrieg , became apparent . With that, the last immature plans to be able to deport the Jews far to the East, after the resettlement projects to Nisko and Madagascar had previously been shelved as unfeasible, fell through.

A clear written order from Hitler to murder all Jews in the German sphere of influence has not yet been found. Probably there was no such formal order. However, letters and orders from high-ranking Nazi leaders repeatedly refer to the Führer's verbal orders for the extermination of the Jews. Apparently, these orders were usually heavily encoded; as well as Heydrich's orders for specific acts of mass murder. What was actually ordered only became apparent when the measures were implemented. However, these could only be initiated and carried out with Hitler's express consent. On this point, all specialist historians agree with all other different interpretations. Because of the public statements made by Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler and other high-ranking Nazi functionaries, every commander - such as the SD task force - could assume this consent in the case of murder actions against Jews.

Deportations and mass murders until the end of 1941

National Socialist action against the Jews became more radical from 1933 through exclusion, disenfranchisement, forced emigration, physical persecution and expropriation. Since the beginning of the war, there have been ghettoization, deportations and mass murders in militarily occupied areas of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. However, these steps did not always take place chronologically and planned one after the other, but sometimes in constant change and sometimes chaotically next to each other.

The mass murder of civilians in Poland began with the invasion of Poland in 1939. A task force formed "for special disposal" under Udo von Woyrsch shot about 7,000 Jews by the end of the year, but was strongly criticized by some army commanders, such as e.g. B. the Commander-in-Chief in the General Government, Johannes Blaskowitz . The historian Hans Mommsen interprets these murders as unplanned individual initiatives.

Since June 22, 1941, four task forces set up in May systematically and on a large scale shot state officials, partisans and - preferably Jewish - "hostages" behind the entire eastern front of the German Wehrmacht . Partly with them, partly without them, units of the Order Police and the Waffen-SS under Hans-Adolf Prützmann , Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski and Friedrich Jeckeln murdered Jews in large numbers in the same area . With the massacre of Hungarian and Ukrainian Jews in Kamenets-Podolsk at the end of August 1941, mass shootings affected tens of thousands for the first time and thus reached a new dimension. The Babyn Yar massacre in September/early October 1941, in which more than 33,000 Jewish residents of Kiev fell victim, is the best-known such mass shooting. The mass murders increasingly tended towards the indiscriminate murder of all Jews.

In the overcrowded ghettos set up by the National Socialists, Jews died every day from malnutrition, infectious diseases and the arbitrary violence of their guards. The " extermination through forced labour ", which the conference minutes called the method of the "final solution", already took place: for example during the construction of an important " through road IV " from Lemberg to the Ukraine.

Mass deportations of German Jews from the Reich began in October . By order of Himmler dated September 18, signed by Kurt Daluege , 20,000 Jews and 5000 “ gypsies ” were deported to Łódź by November 4 . On October 23, 1941, Himmler prohibited all Jews in the German sphere of influence from emigrating.

"At the request of the Führer" another large concentration camp was to be set up near Riga . On November 8, 1941, Hinrich Lohse , Reich Commissioner for the occupied Baltic States, learned that 25,000 Reich and Protectorate Jews were to be deported to Minsk and Riga. In order to accommodate the latter, Jeckeln had a total of 27,800 residents of the Riga ghetto shot on Himmler's personal orders from November 29 to December 1 and on December 8 and 9, 1941. Among the victims were the first transport of 1,053 Berlin Jews , who were shot immediately upon arrival on November 30. Himmler's veto on the same day came too late. The historian Raul Hilberg suspects that it was only intended to appease Lohse's expected protests anyway. According to Dieter Pohl, Himmler feared that a lack of news from the deportees would quickly lead to rumors in Germany about their liquidation. On November 25 and 29, 5,000 Jews from the Reich and the Protectorate who were actually intended for Riga were shot near Kaunas.

The Belzec death camp had been under construction since November 1941; its first gas chambers, with a small capacity, were intended for the murder of Jews who were unable to work. Construction preparations also began for the Sobibor extermination camp and the Majdanek concentration camp in the Lublin district . From the beginning of December 1941, gas vans were used in Kulmhof (Chelmno) to kill Jews. All four task forces now had this.

By the time the Wannsee Conference was convened, the murderers, with Hitler's consent, had killed around 900,000 Jews from Germany, Poland and Russia in the areas occupied by the Wehrmacht. Now, as the final escalation stage, the systematic murder of all Jews in the German sphere of influence should be organized.

Conference preparations

On January 8, 1942, Heydrich invited Undersecretary of State Luther to come on January 20, 1942.

The Wannsee Conference was originally scheduled for December 9, 1941 at 12 noon at the office of the International Criminal Police Commission (IKPK), Am Kleinen Wannsee No. 16. From August 1940 Heydrich acted as chairman of the IKPK. A few days later, Heydrich's office corrected the meeting location to the guest house of the Security Police and SD, Am Grossen Wannsee 56–58. Adolf Eichmann sent Heydrich's invitation to a "meeting followed by breakfast" on November 29. He emphasized the "extraordinary importance" of an overall solution to the Jewish question and enclosed Goering's letter of July 31 to Heydrich. He also confirmed that Jews from Reich territory, Bohemia and Moravia had been "evacuated" since October 15, 1941, so the deportations had long been underway. As head of Gestapo department IV B 4, Eichmann was responsible, among other things, for "Jewish and evacuation matters" and later organized most of the deportations of Jews from Germany, France, the Netherlands, Hungary and other occupied areas to the labor and extermination camps. He also provided Heydrich with templates and figures for his introductory speech and prepared the minutes of the conference.

Other NS ministries also prepared for the meeting. On December 8th, Undersecretary of State Martin Luther received a summary of the "requests and ideas of the Federal Foreign Office regarding the proposed overall solution to the Jewish question in Europe". This recommended the deportation of all Jews of German nationality residing in the German Reich, as well as the Serbian, stateless Jews and Jews handed over by Hungary. The governments in Romania, Croatia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia should be offered the deportation of the Jews living in their countries to the East. Furthermore, pressure should be exerted on all European governments to enact laws against Jews based on the model of the Nuremberg Laws .

After Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Hitler invited the Reichstag for December 9 to announce the declaration of war against the United States . Some of those invited to the Wannsee Conference were members of the Reichstag, including Heydrich; therefore he had the conference canceled at short notice. A note that spoke of a postponement "because of the Reichstag session" confirms his reason for rejection. On January 8, 1942, he had new invitations sent out for January 20, 1942.

By then, important preliminary decisions had already been made on individual points discussed at the conference. Hinrich Lohse had asked Georg Leibbrandt in a letter to the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (RMfdbO) "Re: execution of Jews" on November 15, 1941:

“Should this be done regardless of age and gender and economic interests (e.g. the Wehrmacht in skilled workers in armaments factories)? Of course, the cleansing of the Ostland from Jews is a priority task; but their solution must be reconciled with the needs of the war economy . So far I have not been able to derive such an instruction from the instructions on the Jewish question in the ' brown folder ' or from other decrees."

On December 18, 1941, Otto Brautigam from the RMfdbO replied: “In the meantime, verbal discussions should have clarified the Jewish question. In principle, economic concerns should remain unconsidered when the problem is settled . Otherwise, you are asked to settle any questions that arise directly with the Higher SS and Police Leader . On behalf of the groom.” On December 16, 1941, at a government meeting, Hans Frank spoke of the intention to make the General Government “ Jew-free ” and referred to the upcoming “big meeting in Berlin” at Heydrich’s.

It is not clear why the conference was postponed by around six weeks. The historian Christian Gerlach interprets Hitler's declaration of December 12, 1941, that the extermination of the Jews must be a necessary consequence of the World War that has now begun, as a decision on the Holocaust. A new situation had thus arisen, which required fundamental changes to the plans proposed by Heydrich. This interpretation is shared by only a few specialist historians.

The conference

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Wannsee Protocol: The first sheet of the list of participants

The following 15 officials and functionaries of National Socialist organizations and ministries took part in the conference:

Other representatives of Reich ministries and so-called supreme Reich authorities were also invited. However, some of them had canceled their participation, e.g. B. Leopold Gutterer , State Secretary in the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda . He gave scheduling reasons for his cancellation, but asked to be informed about all follow-up appointments.

content

At the conference, the responsibilities for the deportation and extermination actions that had started were to be clarified, the measures for their implementation coordinated and their spatial and temporal sequence determined. Finally, the groups of those Jews who were destined for deportation and thus extermination were defined here. This required the cooperation of many institutions that had not previously been informed about the "final solution".

In the minutes of the Wannsee Conference, Heydrich stated that Göring had appointed him "Commissioner for the preparation of the final solution to the European Jewish question" and that the "Reichsfuhrer SS and Chief of the German Police", i.e. Himmler, was in charge. At this meeting, he wanted to coordinate with the directly involved central authorities.

Heydrich reported on the emigration of around 537,000 Jews from the " Old Reich ", Austria as well as Bohemia and Moravia, in their place after "prior approval by the Führer the evacuation of the Jews to the East" should take place. Around eleven million Jews could be considered for the “final solution to the European Jewish question”. This number also included “Jews of faith” from the unoccupied part of France, from England, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and other neutral or enemy states outside the German sphere of influence. The record went on to say:

"In large work columns, with the sexes separated, the able-bodied Jews will be taken to these areas to build roads, whereby a large part will undoubtedly be lost due to natural reduction. The possibly finally remaining rest will have to be treated accordingly, since this is undoubtedly the most resilient part, since this, representing a natural selection, is to be addressed as the nucleus of a new Jewish structure upon release.

The implementation would scour "Europe West to East"; this should be started because of “socio-political necessities” and to free up living space in the Reich area. First, the German Jews were to be transported to transit ghettos and from there to the east. Jews over the age of 65 and Jews with war disabilities or holders of the Iron Cross I would be sent to the Theresienstadt ghetto . This would "switch off the many interventions in one fell swoop".

After mentioning possible difficulties in the "evacuation action" in the "occupied or influenced European territories", the question of how to deal with " Jewish half-breeds " and " mixed marriages " was addressed. According to the protocol, the Nuremberg Laws were to form the basis “in a manner of speaking”. In fact, Heydrich's proposals went far beyond that:

  • As a rule, "mixed blood of the first degree" (" half-Jews ") should be treated like "full Jews" regardless of their religious affiliation. Exceptions were only made for those "half-breeds" who were married to a " German-blooded " partner and who had not remained childless. Other exceptions can only be granted by the highest party authorities.
  • Every "first degree half-breed" who was allowed to remain in the German Reich was to be sterilized .
  • "Mischlinge of the 2nd degree" (" quarter Jews ") should, as a rule, be put on an equal footing with people of "German blood", unless they could be classified as Jews due to their conspicuous Jewish appearance or poor police and political assessment.
  • In the case of existing “mixed marriages” between “full Jews” and “people of German blood”, the Jewish part should either be “evacuated” or sent to Theresienstadt if resistance from German relatives is to be expected.
  • Further rules were raised for "mixed marriages" where one or both spouses were "mixed race".

These detailed proposals were rejected as impractical by State Secretary Stuckart, who had been involved in drafting the Nuremberg Laws in 1935. He proposed that the compulsory divorce of "mixed marriages" be enacted by law and that all "first-degree mixed race" be sterilized. Since no agreement could be reached on these points, these detailed questions were postponed to subsequent conferences.

Josef Bühler, Hans Frank's State Secretary in the Office of the Governor-General, urged Heydrich at the conference to start measures on Polish territory in the " General Government " because he saw no transport problems here and wanted "to solve the Jewish question in this area as quickly as possible". . In any case, the majority of these Jews are not able to work and "as carriers of the disease are an eminent danger".

follow-up conferences

Invitation to the follow-up conference on March 6, 1942
List of participants in the meeting on the final solution to the Jewish question in the Reich Security Main Office on March 6, 1942

On January 29, 1942, nine days after the Wannsee Conference, the first follow-up conference took place. 16 participants came to this meeting in the rooms of the RMfdbO on Rauchstraße 17/18 in Berlin, with the RMfdbO being represented by a total of 8 participants, including Otto Brautigam , Erhard Wetzel , Hermann Weitnauer and Gerhard von Mende . Subordinate representatives of ministries (RSHA, Ministry of Justice), the party chancellery and the OKW also took part, including Friedrich Suhr (RSHA), Bernhard Loener (Ministry of Justice), Albert Frey (OKW) and Herbert Reischauer (Party Chancellery). The meeting was chaired by Otto Brautigam. The aim of this meeting was to fill in the content of the resolutions made at the Wannsee Conference and to specify them in legal terms. The central theme of this conference was who was henceforth to be considered a "Jew" and thus to define exactly who was to be exterminated. The RMfdbO did not want the term “Jew” to be defined “too narrowly” and emphasized that the regulations in force in the occupied territories would not be sufficient anyway and would have to be “tightened” insofar as “half- breeds ” would also be considered “full Jews” in the future to have. These proposals were carried through at the end of the session. The conference participants agreed that in future all members of the Jewish religion would have to be considered “Jews” in all occupied territories, as well as legitimate and illegitimate children from relationships in which some were Jews (i.e. children from so-called mixed marriages ), as well as non-Jewish wives of Jews. According to the resolution, the necessary local decisions should be made by the "political-police bodies and their experts on racial issues". This conference took place when the first deportations to the Theresienstadt concentration camp began; and a day before Hitler announced in his speech in the Berlin Sportpalast: "We are aware that the war can only end with either the Aryan peoples being exterminated or with Jewry disappearing from Europe."

Two further follow-up conferences took place on March 6 and October 27, 1942 in Adolf Eichmann's Department IV B 4 at Kurfürstenstrasse 115/116 in Berlin .

According to a note by Franz Rademacher , the “ Judenreferent ” in the Reich Foreign Ministry , Stuckart’s proposal was discussed on March 6. He had advocated the forced sterilization of all "first-degree Jewish half-breeds" and the forced divorce of all "mixed marriages". Since sterilization is currently not feasible in the hospitals, this measure should be postponed until the end of the war. General legal objections and “propaganda” reasons were put forward against forced divorce. This meant foreseeable resistance, especially on the part of the Catholic Church and an intervention by the Vatican . It was also difficult to assess the reactions of the “ Jewish relative ” spouses. As it turned out in 1943 during the factory action at the Rosenstrasse protest , the supposedly threatened deportation of Jewish spouses actually led to public declarations of solidarity from the "German-blooded" relatives.

On October 27, 1942, the demand for forced divorce from "mixed marriages" was dealt with again. Apparently, however, there were indications from the Reich Chancellery that the "Fuhrer" did not want to make any decisions during the war. In October 1943, Otto Thierack from the Ministry of Justice made an agreement with Himmler not to deport "half-breed Jews" for the time being. Such consideration for the mood of the population was not demanded of the SS in the occupied eastern territories: Jewish spouses from "mixed marriages" and the "first-degree Jewish half-breeds" were included in the genocide there.

The assessment of the role that Stuckart played with his proposals remained controversial. According to his subordinates Bernhard Loener and Hans Globke , Stuckart made the compromise proposal for mass sterilization with the background knowledge that this would not be feasible, at least during the war. In doing so, he prevented the deportation and murder of the German "half-breeds of the first degree". On the other hand, his suggestion of a compulsory divorce for “mixed marriages”, which would have resulted in the death of the Jewish partner, could have been implemented quickly.

Heydrich's intention, mentioned in the protocol, to prepare a "draft on the organizational, factual and material concerns with regard to the final solution of the European Jewish question" and to forward this to Göring, was not realized.

Historical processing

find history

The minutes of the meeting, prepared by Eichmann based on shorthand, were revised several times by Müller and Heydrich. A total of 30 copies of the final version were issued, which were stamped as " Secret Reich matter " and then sent to the participants or their offices. To date, only the 16th copy, that of the conference participant Martin Luther, has been found. Apparently, the only reason the files escaped destruction was that Luther had been imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp for an intrigue against Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop , which is why his department had been dissolved and the files had been evacuated. Parts of the archive were first taken to the Marburg Castle by Americans , and in February 1946 they were examined further at the Telefunken factory in Berlin-Lichterfelde , and the Wannsee documents were microfilmed for the first time. In the summer of 1948, the entire inventory was brought to Whaddon Hall / Buckinghamshire , where it was filmed again and returned to the Political Archive of the Foreign Office in Bonn at the end of the 1950s ; the document is now in Berlin since the Political Archives moved.

Robert Kempner (Deputy to the American Chief Prosecutor Robert H. Jackson ) states that an employee reported to him that the minutes of the Wannsee Conference had been found in March 1947 during the preparations for the " Wilhelmstrasse Trial ". The letter of invitation for Otto Hofmann had already been found in August 1945, so it was known that a conference on the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” was planned.

The log as a source

The meeting minutes of the Wannsee Conference were used in the opening speech in the trial against the Race and Settlement Main Office and quoted a few weeks later in the indictment on the Wilhelmstrasse trial .

Although there was no overall plan for the "final solution" that could be implemented, the protocol is considered a key document for the organization of the genocide. Holocaust deniers claim it is fake. To do this, they often fall back on a book by Robert Kempner, in which he mixed facsimiles with copies in a vulnerable way , but nevertheless correctly reproduced the text itself. The historians Norbert Kampe and Christian Mentel have refuted these allegations of forgery.

On August 7 and 13, 1941, Eichmann had the Reich Association of Jews in Germany requested to provide statistical information about the Jews in Europe. His Referat IV B 4 compared these figures with occupation authorities' data and already subtracted the victims of the Holocaust in Lithuania , Latvia and Estonia , which is described as "Jew-free". The obviously inflated number for the unoccupied part of France, which led to speculation about the inclusion of the Jews of North Africa in the extermination plans, is explained by Dan Michman as a typographical error; Ahlrich Meyer traces it back to an estimate by Theodor Dannecker .

According to Eichmann's testimony at his trial in Jerusalem in 1961, the minutes of the conference are "an exact reproduction of the content of the conference". It was important to Heydrich that all essential details were recorded so that the participants could refer to them later. Only the discussion after the end of the conference, which was also in shorthand, was not recorded. Eichmann contradicted the protocol on some points at the time, especially with regard to the importance of himself at the conference. However, the total duration of this conference, which was recorded in the minutes, of about one and a half hours is indisputable.

classification

The text of the protocol that has been preserved documents the intention to murder all European Jews, the agreement in principle and the effective participation of the National Socialist state apparatus in the genocide. The phrase "treated accordingly" in Eichmann's rendering of Heydrich's introductory speech is seen by some historians as a typical camouflage phrase for the murder of the Jews who survived the forced labor, since the context does not permit any other conclusion (cf. special treatment ). Hans Mommsen contradicts this : It was by no means a camouflage phrase; Rather, Heydrich actually planned to exterminate a large part of the Jews through work, but the final solution to the Jewish question was only a long-term goal, before which the surviving Jews would still have to be transported further east. Here the settlement or reservation solution was renewed, as it was shown in the years 1939 to 1941, among other things, in the Nisko and Madagascar plans , which "however can hardly be regarded as a more humane alternative".

According to Eichmann at his trial, the actual language was unmistakable: "It was about killing and eliminating and destroying."

Which killing variants were discussed is controversial among specialist historians. From the extermination actions that had started beforehand and the minutes of the conference itself, most people deduce that the highest authority had previously decided to expand the murder actions into a systematic genocide, to which all European Jews indiscriminately were to fall victim. The Jews from England and Spain were listed in the figures for the overall planning: Their inclusion was unrealistic in view of the unfavorable development of the war for the National Socialists at the time.

The historian Peter Longerich comes to the conclusion that even after the conference there was no fixed plan as to when and by what means the genocide was to be carried out. However, it can be proven that after that "the deportations were extended to the entire German area" and a "comprehensive program of forced labor" began to take effect.

Thomas Sandkühler points out that the decisive effect was that Jews classified as “unable to work” were murdered in eastern Galicia before the conference. Only then did the murder order apply to all Jews apart from the very few Jews who had been declared indispensable in the oil industry.

The Wannsee Conference was a bureaucratic clarification of the responsibilities of the agencies involved and the group of people to be murdered: This already presupposed some kind of resolution on the "final solution to the Jewish question". Such a decision could in no case be taken by subordinate persons, but only at the highest level. Only then should the leadership of the Reich Security Main Office be laid down and cooperation and coordination of the agencies involved be ensured. According to the British historian Mark Roseman , the Wannsee Conference was not very important for the actual course of the Holocaust. In retrospect, it was only of outstanding importance because its protocol was preserved. His text provides insight into a moment “when continent-wide murder had already emerged as a political goal, the possibility of global extermination was at least considered and the exact balance between direct extermination and short-term exploitation through forced labor had not yet been established”.

The memorial and educational center "House of the Wannsee Conference" describes the widespread assumption that the Europe-wide genocide was decided here as an "almost irreversible error in historiography and journalism". Nevertheless, the conference is of great historical importance: The ongoing genocide was coordinated here and the highest officials of all important ministries were made aware of it, in which numerous people then provided organizational support as “ desk workers ”.

Law enforcement after 1945

A third of the conference participants did not survive the war. Heydrich died on June 4, 1942 as a result of an assassination attempt in Prague , Roland Freisler died in a bomb attack , Rudolf Lange and Alfred Meyer committed suicide. Martin Luther died in spring 1945 as a result of his imprisonment in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Heinrich Müller was thought to have disappeared.

Even before the Wannsee Conference protocol was discovered, two participants were executed for war crimes they had committed . Eberhard Schöngarth was sentenced to death and executed by the British military court in 1946 for personally ordering the shooting of a prisoner of war. Josef Bühler was sentenced to death in Kraków in 1946. Wilhelm Kritzinger died in 1947 before the Wilhelmstrasse trial opened, and Erich Neumann died in 1948.

If there were any convictions at all, facts other than attending the conference were cited in the verdict. The proceedings were discontinued in the case of Georg Leibbrandt (1950) and Gerhard Klopfer (1962). Both had been released from custody in 1949. Otto Hofmann was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 1948 in the Nuremberg follow-up trial against the SS Race and Settlement Main Office , but was released from Landsberg Prison in 1954 . Wilhelm Stuckart was sentenced to three years and ten months in the Wilhelmstrasse trial, but was released in 1949 because the internment detention was taken into account.

Adolf Eichmann fled to Argentina after the war , but was kidnapped there by a commando of the Israeli secret service Mossad , taken to Israel and executed in Jerusalem in 1962 after a sensational trial .

The conference building as a memorial

Logo-HDWK.svg

The Berlin architect Paul Baumgarten planned and built the bourgeois villa, at that time at Große Seestraße 19a, in 1914–1915 for the manufacturer Ernst Marlier . The building was considered his most luxurious construction and at the time belonged to the municipality of Wannsee , today a part of the district of Steglitz-Zehlendorf . In 1921, Marlier sold the property to Friedrich Minoux , then General Manager of the Stinnes Group (hence the name "Minoux Villa"). In 1929, when the street was renumbered, it was given the house number 56/58. Since April 8, 1933, the street has been called Am Grossen Wannsee . Minoux was arrested in May 1940 for fraud. From prison, he sold the villa and property to the Nordhav Foundation , which handled property transactions for the SS Security Service (SD), for the market price of 1.95 million Reichsmarks at the time.

From 1940 onwards, the SS had the exterior of the villa maintained by forced laborers in the “ closed Jewish labor deployment ” and later by Eastern European forced laborers . Used as a guest house by the security police, high-ranking SS officers, leaders of task forces or friendly foreign intelligence chiefs stayed here. At the beginning of February 1943, the Nordhav Foundation sold the property to the German Reich ( security police administration) with the contractual arrangement (§4) for "continuation as a comradeship and leader's home for the security police " . Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller moved his headquarters to the villa.

After the end of the war, according to unconfirmed reports, first the Red Army and later the US Army temporarily used the property. At times it was empty, so the facility has not been preserved. In 1946 the property then became the property of the Greater Berlin magistrate . In December 1946, he rented it to the Berlin SPD , which housed an educational and recreational facility and a library for the August Bebel Institute , founded in March 1947 by five social democratic publishers . After the decision was made in autumn 1951 to give up the house again for financial reasons, the property was leased to the Neukölln district in January 1952 , which used the villa as a school camp.

In 1966, the historian Joseph Wulf , who had survived the Auschwitz concentration camp , founded an association to research National Socialism. The building was to be rededicated as a documentation center and used by the association. The plan remained controversial for a long time; It was not until 1988 that the villa and garden were reconstructed according to monument preservation criteria and for use as a memorial. In 1992, the memorial and educational center - House of the Wannsee Conference was opened in the rooms of the villa; it bears the name of Joseph Wulfs. On the ground floor of the building, the permanent exhibition "The Wannsee Conference and the Genocide of European Jews" provides information about the process of exclusion, persecution, expulsion, ghettoization and extermination of Jews in the German sphere of influence between 1933 and 1945 A new permanent exhibition opened in 2006. In 2020 the permanent exhibition was revised again. It now bears the heading "The meeting at Wannsee and the murder of the European Jews".

Artistic processing

novels

In Fever , Leslie Kaplan describes the importance of the conference in Eichmann's rise in fictional form. Accordingly, Eichmann had imagined that sitting with Heydrich was a career leap for him. In the novel, the hoped-for professional advancement is an important reason why Eichmann was involved in the mass crimes of the Holocaust. So it was about murders with no real motive.

In his novel Vaterland , Robert Harris depicts the vision that Germany won the Second World War and rules over all of Europe. The Jews have vanished from the entire sphere of influence and their existence is a fading, unspoken memory among the populace. A few days before Hitler's 75th " Fuhrer's birthday " a series of murders of former Nazi greats begins. Gradually, the investigating police officer uncovers that the murder victims are the surviving accomplices of the hushed-up disappearance of the Jews. The novel highlights the secrecy of the conference and the few remaining documents.

play

Paul Mommertz wrote the 1984 stage play The Wannsee Conference . He used the Eichmann protocol, Eichmann's statements in his trial and written documents for dialogues that were as realistic as possible. Like the conference, the piece lasts 90 minutes and draws its effect from the technocratic coldness with which the participants negotiate the planned mass murder of 11 million people as a purely logistical problem.

The play premiered at the Volkstheater in Vienna ; further performances e.g. B. directed by Peter Sodann in Halle (Saale) . In September and October 2003, the piece was staged by Isolde Christine Wabra as part of the state exhibition "Value of Life" and performed ten times in the Hartheim Castle learning and memorial site .

The play also served as the screenplay for the film of the same name.

movies

The Wannsee Conference is the subject of several feature films. In 1984, a television version of the play by Paul Mommertz, directed by Heinz Schirk , first appeared : Die Wannseekonferenz . Dietrich Mattausch played Heydrich in it, Gerd Böckmann played Eichmann. The film won numerous international awards, including the Adolf Grimme Prize . The cinema version followed in 1987.

Frank Pierson directed the English language film Conspiracy (USA/UK, 2001, in German as Die Wannseekonferenz ). Like the historical gathering, this feature film also lasts 85 minutes and is based on the protocol. However, since this does not reproduce a verbatim speech, the dialogues are reconstructed and therefore not historically documented. The documentary character originally aimed for by Pierson's production was not achieved because the implementation was dramaturgically revised. Information from the memorial that had the script before the start of shooting about unproven details was not processed. In the film, which was filmed at the conference location, Kritzinger is portrayed as a doubter: This does not correspond to the historical facts that have been handed down.

In addition to these films, the Wannsee Conference was featured in a scene in the four-part TV series Holocaust - The History of the White Family , but only with the participants Heydrich and Eichmann.

Phoenix aired on January 27, 2018, 8:15-9:00 p.m. under the title Mysterious Places. At Wannsee. a film about the history of the villas at Wannsee. This film deals with the house of the Wannsee Conference.

In January 2022, the film The Wannsee Conference by director Matti Geschonneck will be broadcast on ZDF.

literature

  • Hans-Christian Jasch, Christoph Kreutzmüller (eds.): The participants. The Men of the Wannsee Conference . Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-86331-306-7 .
  • Memorial and educational center House of the Wannsee Conference (ed.): The Wannsee Conference and the genocide of the European Jews. Catalog of the permanent exhibition. Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-9808517-4-5 ; (Facsimile of all exhibits and comments). English version, ibid. The Wannsee Conference and the Genocide of the European Jews . ISBN 3-9808517-5-3 .
  • Christian Gerlach : The Wannsee Conference, the fate of the German Jews and Hitler's fundamental political decision to murder all Jews in Europe. In: the same: war, nutrition, genocide. German policy of annihilation in World War II . Pendo, Zurich / Munich 2001, ISBN 3-85842-404-8 , pp. 79-152 (first in workshop history H. 18, vol. 6, November 1997), review by Götz Aly.
  • Michael Haupt: The House of the Wannsee Conference. From the industrial villa to the memorial. Bonifatius, Paderborn 2009, ISBN 978-3-9813119-1-4 , 200 pages with 131 photos/documents, some of them in colour.
  • Wolf Kaiser: The Wannsee Conference. SS leaders and ministry officials in agreement about the murder of European Jews. In: Heiner Lichtenstein, Otto R. Romberg (ed.): Perpetrators - Victims - Consequences. The Holocaust past and present. 2nd edition, Bonn 1997, ISBN 3-89331-257-9 , pp. 24–37.
  • Norbert Kampe, Peter Klein (both as editors): The Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942. Documents, state of research, controversies. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-412-21070-0 , 481 p. (collective volume, table of contents (PDF; 24 kB) from the publisher).
  • Gerd Kühling: school camp or research facility? The discussion about a documentation center in the house of the Wannsee Conference (1966/67) , in: Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History 5 (2008), pp. 211-235.
  • Peter Longerich : The Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942. Planning and beginning of the genocide of the European Jews. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-89468-250-7 .
  • Peter Longerich: Wannsee Conference. The Road to the “Final Solution” . Pantheon Verlag, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-570-55344-2 .
  • Kurt Pätzold , Erika Schwarz : Agenda for the murder of the Jews. The Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942 . Metropol, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-926893-12-5 .
  • Mark Roseman: The Wannsee Conference. How the Nazi bureaucracy organized the Holocaust. Ullstein, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-548-36403-9 .
  • Johannes Tuchel : Am Grossen Wannsee 56-58. From Villa Minoux to the House of the Wannsee Conference (Series: Publications of the Memorial "House of the Wannsee Conference" Vol. 1), Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-89468-026-1 .
  • Peter Klein: The Wannsee Conference at Zeitgeschichte-online.

web links

Commons : Wannsee Conference  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
Documents

Historical Representations

movies

educational material

itemizations

  1. ↑ Eberhard Jäckel : The conference at Wannsee. "Where Heydrich announced his empowerment" - The Holocaust was well underway. In: Die Zeit from January 17, 1992, p. 33.
  2. ↑ quoted from Ralf Georg Reuth: Goebbels . Munich/Zurich 1990, ISBN 3-492-03183-8 , p. 491.
  3. ↑ Max Domarus: Hitler - Speeches and Proclamations. Volume 2, Würzburg 1963, p. 1937.
  4. ↑ Göring's letter to Heydrich: Order for the final solution (PDF; 210 kB).
  5. ↑ Guido Knopp : Holocaust . Goldmann 2001, ISBN 3-442-15152-X , p. 139.
  6. ↑ quoted from Ralf Georg Reuth: Goebbels . Munich/Zurich 1990, ISBN 3-492-03183-8 , p. 491.
  7. ↑ Christian Gerlach: The Wannsee Conference, the fate of the German Jews and Hitler's fundamental political decision to murder all Jews in Europe . In: Christian Gerlach: War, Nutrition, Genocide. German policy of annihilation in World War II . Zurich/Munich 2001, ISBN 3-85842-404-8 . ( PDF, 3.5MB )
  8. ↑ Hans Mommsen: Auschwitz, July 17, 1942. The way to the European "final solution of the Jewish question" . Munich 2002, ISBN 3-423-30605-X , p. 163 - See Peter Longerich: Politics of Destruction. An overview of the National Socialist persecution of the Jews , chapter "The four stages of escalation ...". Munich 1998, ISBN 3-492-03755-0 .
  9. ↑ Christopher Browning : The unleashing of the "Final Solution" - National Socialist Jewish policy 1939-1942 . Munich 2003, ISBN 3-549-07187-6 , pp. 536f; Götz Aly : "Final Solution". Displacement of peoples and the murder of the European Jews . Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 358f; in summary: Michael Kißener : "The Third Reich", in: Controversies about history . Darmstadt 2005, ISBN 3-534-14726-X , p. 30 ff.
  10. ↑ Michael Kißener: The Third Reich , in: Controversies about history . Darmstadt 2005, ISBN 3-534-14726-X , p. 29.
  11. ↑ Ruth Bettina Birn : The Higher SS and Police Leaders . Düsseldorf 1986, ISBN 3-7700-0710-7 , p. 168 ff.
  12. ↑ Dieter Pohl: The murder of the Jews in the General Government , in: Ulrich Herbert (ed.): National Socialist Destruction Policy 1939-1945 . 4th edition, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-596-13772-1 , pp. 98-122.
  13. ↑ Hans Mommsen : Auschwitz, July 17, 1942. The way to the European "final solution of the Jewish question" . Munich 2002, ISBN 3-423-30605-X , pp. 113 and 150.
  14. ↑ Raul Hilberg : The Destruction of the European Jews , 9th edition 1999, ISBN 3-596-24417-X , p. 310 ff.
  15. ↑ Hermann Kaienburg : Jewish labor camps in the "Strasse der SS" . In: Journal of Social History of the 20th and 21st Centuries , 11, 1996, pp. 13–39.
  16. ↑ Raul Hilberg: The Destruction of the European Jews , 9th edition 1999, ISBN 3-596-24417-X , p. 222 ff.
  17. ↑ Raul Hilberg: The Destruction of the European Jews , 9th edition 1999, ISBN 3-596-24417-X , p. 368.
  18. ↑ Ruth Bettina Birn: The Higher SS and Police Leaders . Düsseldorf 1986, ISBN 3-7700-0710-7 , p. 175.
  19. ↑ a b Raul Hilberg: The Destruction of the European Jews , 9th edition 1999, ISBN 3-596-24417-X , p. 370.
  20. ↑ Dieter Pohl: Persecution and mass murder in the Nazi period 1933-1945 . ISBN 3-534-15158-5 , p. 86.
  21. ↑ Raul Hilberg: The Destruction of the European Jews , 9th edition 1999, ISBN 3-596-24417-X , p. 371.
  22. ↑ Dieter Pohl: Persecution and mass murder in the Nazi period 1933-1945 . ISBN 3-534-15158-5 , p. 83.
  23. ↑ Peter Longerich: Wannsee Conference. The Road to the “Final Solution” . Pantheon, Munich 2016, p. 18 f.; 1. Heydrich's invitation to Hofmann (misspelled with a double F) (PDF).
  24. ↑ Memorial and Educational Site House of the Wannsee Conference (ed.): The Wannsee Conference and the Genocide of European Jews. Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-9808517-4-5 , p. 94.
  25. ↑ Christian Gerlach: War, nutrition, genocide... German policy of annihilation in World War II... , Zurich/Munich 2001, p. 116.
  26. ^ 2. Heydrich's invitation to Hofmann (spelled correctly this time) (PDF).
  27. ↑ Document VEJ 7/213 in: Bert Hoppe, Hiltrud Glass (Edit): The persecution and murder of European Jews by Nazi Germany 1933-1945 (collection of sources) Volume 7: Soviet Union with annexed territories I - Occupied Soviet territories under German military administration , Baltic States and Transnistria. Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-486-58911-5 , pp. 578–579.
  28. ↑ Memorial and Educational Site House of the Wannsee Conference (ed.): The Wannsee Conference and the Genocide of European Jews. Berlin 2006, p. 90 / Document VEJ 7/221 in: Bert Hoppe, Hiltrud Glass (Edit): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933-1945 (collection of sources) Volume 7: Soviet Union with annexed territories I - Occupied Soviet territories under German military administration, Baltic States and Transnistria. Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-486-58911-5 , p. 586.
  29. ↑ Speech printed in: Werner Präg, Wolfgang Jacobmeyer (eds.): The service diary of the German governor general in Poland 1939-1945. Stuttgart 1975, p. 457 f.; Excerpt in: Norbert Kampe, Peter Klein (ed.): The Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942 - documents, state of research, controversies . Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-412-21070-0 , p. 28 f.
  30. ↑ Christian Gerlach: War, nutrition, genocide... Hamburg 1998, p. 116 f.
  31. ↑ Organization chart of conference participants: rank, function, photos ; PDF.
  32. ↑ Heinz-Jürgen Priamus: Meyer. Between loyalty to the Kaiser and Nazi perpetrators. Biographical Contours of a German Citizen . Klartext Verlag, Essen 2011, ISBN 978-3-8375-0592-4 , p. 377 ff.
  33. ↑ Mark Roseman : The Wannsee Conference. How the bureaucracy organized the Holocaust. Munich/Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-548-36403-9 , p. 95.
  34. ↑ Memorial and Educational Site House of the Wannsee Conference (ed.): The Wannsee Conference and the Genocide of European Jews. Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-9808517-4-5 , p. 84.
  35. ↑ Analysis of the numbers by Götz Aly: "Final solution". 3rd edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 299ff.
  36. ↑ Robert MW Kempner: Eichmann and accomplices , Zurich 1961, p. 165.
  37. ↑ a b c d Ernst Piper : Alfred Rosenberg . Hitler's Chief Ideologist, Munich 2005, p. 592, ISBN 3-89667-148-0 . (Source: List of participants BArch R 6/74, Bl. 76.); Michael Wildt : Generation of the Unconditional. The Leadership Corps of the Reich Security Main Office. Hamburg 2002, p. 641. (Minutes of the meeting: Deployment in the "Reichskommissariat" Ostland, 1998, p. 57 ff.); H. D. Heilmann: From the War Diary of the Diplomat Otto Brautigam . In: Götz Aly et al. (Eds.): Biedermann and desk workers . Materials on the German perpetrator biography, Berlin 1987, p. 180 f.
  38. ↑ Gerald Reitlinger: The final solution . Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe 1939-1945, 7th ed., Berlin 1992, p. 90.
  39. ↑ Quoted in: Peter Longerich: The unwritten command . Hitler and the way to the "final solution". Munich 2001, p. 140.
  40. ↑ Document VEJ 6/84 in: Susanne Heim (Edit): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933-1945. (Source collection) Volume 6: German Reich and Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia October 1941-March 1943. Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-11-036496-5 , p. 300 / For content see also document VEJ 6/83.
  41. ↑ see document VEJ 6/87 in: Susanne Heim (Edit): The persecution and murder of the European Jews... Volume 6: German Reich and Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia October 1941-March 1943. Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3- 11-036496-5 , pp. 307-310.
  42. ↑ Document VEJ 6/182 in: Susanne Heim (Edit): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933-1945 (collection of sources) Volume 6: German Reich and Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia October 1941-March 1943. Berlin 2019 , ISBN 978-3-11-036496-5 , pp. 504–508.
  43. ↑ Mark Roseman: The Wannsee Conference. How the bureaucracy organized the Holocaust. Munich/Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-548-36403-9 , p. 144.
  44. ↑ Beate Meyer: "Jewish half-breeds", racial policy and experience of persecution 1933-1945 . Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-933374-22-7 , p. 12.
  45. ↑ Ursula Büttner : The persecution of the Christian-Jewish "mixed families" . In: Ursula Büttner: Sharing the plight of the Jews . Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-7672-1055-X , p. 63.
  46. ↑ Mark Roseman: The Wannsee Conference. How the bureaucracy organized the Holocaust. Munich/Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-548-36403-9 , p. 139 ff.
  47. ↑ Hans Mommsen: Auschwitz, July 17, 1942. The way to the European "final solution of the Jewish question". Munich 2002, ISBN 3-423-30605-X , p. 163.
  48. ↑ A distribution list based on Eichmann's information is printed in: Norbert Kampe, Peter Klein (eds.): The Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942 - documents, state of research, controversies . Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-412-21070-0 , pp. 113–115.
  49. ↑ Martin Kröger, Roland Thimme: The Political Archive of the Foreign Office in the Second World War. securing escape loss, repatriation. In: Quarterly magazines for contemporary history , 47, 1999, H. 2, p. 255 f. PDF.
  50. ↑ Christian Mentel: The Protocol of the Wannsee Conference. Transmission, publication and revisionist questioning. In: Norbert Kampe, Peter Klein (eds.): The Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942 - documents, state of research, controversies . Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-412-21070-0 , p. 122 / With the first film number stamp lower right.
  51. ↑ Scientific edition of the Wannsee documents in: Files on German Foreign Policy 1918-1945, Series E: 1941-1945, Volume I: December 12 to February 28, 1942, Göttingen 1969, pp. 267-275.
  52. ↑ Martin Sabrow and Christian Mentel (eds.): The Foreign Office and its controversial past. A German Debate . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt am Main 2014, ISBN 978-3-596-19602-9 ; p. 128.
  53. ↑ Robert MW Kempner: Prosecutors of an Epoch - Memoirs. Ullstein book No. 44076, Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-548-33076-2 , p. 310 f. This employee was Kenneth Duke see SPIEGEL No. 7/2002 of February 9, 2002: “I was alarmed straight away “.
  54. ↑ Norbert Kampe, Peter Klein (ed.): The Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942 - documents, state of research, controversies . Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-412-21070-0 , p. 124.
  55. ↑ Christian Mentel: The Protocol of the Wannsee Conference. Transmission, publication and revisionist questioning. In: Norbert Kampe, Peter Klein (eds.): The Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942 - documents, state of research, controversies . Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-412-21070-0 , p. 124.
  56. ↑ Robert MW Kempner: Eichmann and accomplices. Zurich and others 1961
  57. ↑ Norbert Kampe: History of tradition and allegation of forgery... , in: Mark Roseman: The Wannsee Conference. How the bureaucracy organized the Holocaust. Munich/Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-548-36403-9 , p. 157 f; facsimiles also at Wikisource; Christian Mentel: Just a “scrap of paper”? The minutes of the Wannsee Conference as an object of revisionist historical falsification (PDF; 536 kB), in: Memorial and Educational Site House of the Wannsee Conference (ed.): Newsletter 26, July 2011; Christian Mentel: Between "century falsification" and the National Socialist vision of a "Jewish revival" - the minutes of the Wannsee Conference in revisionist journalism (PDF; 163 kB), in: Gideon Botsch/Christoph Kopke/Lars Rensmann/Julius H. Schoeps (ed .): politics of hate. Anti-Semitism and the Radical Right in Europe , Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim/Zurich/New York 2010, ISBN 978-3-487-14438-2 , pp. 195–210.
  58. ↑ Norbert Kampe, Peter Klein (ed.): The Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942 - documents, state of research, controversies . Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-412-21070-0 , pp. 20–24.
  59. ↑ e.g. B. Götz Aly : "Final Solution". 3rd edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-14067-6 , p. 300 f / first time in 1995.
  60. ↑ Dan Michman: The Jews of North Africa Targeted by 'Final Solution' Planners? In: Norbert Kampe, Peter Klein (eds.): The Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942… , Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-412-21070-0 , p. 396.
  61. ↑ Ahlrich Meyer: Perpetrators under interrogation - The "final solution of the Jewish question" in France 1940-1944 . Darmstadt 2005, ISBN 3-534-17564-6 , p. 87.
  62. ↑ Hans Mommsen: The escalation of the National Socialist extermination of the Jews . In: Klaus Michael Mallmann and Jürgen Matthäus (eds.): Germans, Jews, Genocide. The Holocaust as History and Present . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2006, p. 65 f.
  63. ↑ Peter Longerich: Politics of Destruction. An overview of the Nazi persecution of the Jews . Munich 1998, ISBN 3-492-03755-0 , p. 712, note 238; YouTube video of the 1961 Eichmann interrogation. ( May 19, 2007 memento at the Internet Archive )
  64. ↑ Memorial and Educational Site House of the Wannsee Conference (ed.): The Wannsee Conference and the Genocide of European Jews. Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-9808517-4-5 , p. 99.
  65. ↑ Peter Longerich: The Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942. Planning and Beginning of the Genocide of the European Jews . Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-89468-250-7 , p. 32.
  66. ↑ Thomas Sandkuehler: "Final Solution" in Galicia. The Murder of the Jews in Eastern Poland and Berthold Beitz's Rescue Initiatives 1941–1944 . Dietz Verlag, Bonn 1996, ISBN 3-8012-5022-9 , p. 421.
  67. ↑ "a moment in German policy when continent-wide murder had crystallized as policy, the possibility of global elimination was being at least scoped out, and the exact balance between direct extermination and short-term labor exploitation had not yet been established." Mark Roseman: The Holocaust in European History . In: Nicholas Doumanis (ed.): The Oxford Handbook of European History, 1914–1945 pp. 518–534, here p. 530.
  68. ↑ Memorial and Educational Site House of the Wannsee Conference (ed.): The Wannsee Conference and the Genocide of European Jews. Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-9808517-4-5 , p. 100.
  69. ^ Ernst Marlier (1875 - 1948). In: house history. Memorial and Educational Site - House of the Wannsee Conference, accessed July 23, 2021 .
  70. ↑ Frederick Minoux. Tabular curriculum vitae in LeMO ( DHM and HdG )
  71. ↑ Frederick Minoux (1877 - 1945). In: house history. Memorial and Educational Site - House of the Wannsee Conference, accessed July 23, 2021 .
  72. ↑ a b Guest house of the SS (1940-1945). In: house history. Memorial and Educational Site - House of the Wannsee Conference, accessed July 23, 2021 .
  73. ↑ August Bebel Institute (1947 - 1952). In: house history. Memorial and Educational Site - House of the Wannsee Conference, accessed July 23, 2021 .
  74. ↑ School hostel Neukölln (1952-1988). In: house history. Memorial and Educational Site - House of the Wannsee Conference, accessed July 23, 2021 .
  75. ↑ Jeremy Adler : No Review. A command output! In: Die Welt , January 20, 2020.
  76. ↑ Infafilm: The Wannsee Conference (1984). ( July 19, 2011 memento on WebCite )

Coordinates: 52° 25′ 58.5″  N , 13° 9′ 55.9″  E