Heydrich convened the conference to discuss “the Final Solution of the Jewish Question” on 20 January 1942 at a columned official residence set amid gardens on the Wannsee, a popular public lake outside Berlin. Present, Gerlach says, summarising, “were five representatives from the Security Police and the SD, eight politicians and functionaries from the civil administration, and two representatives from the party, one from the party chancellery and one from the Race and Resettlement Office of the ϟϟ.” Eichmann and Müller, now fully informed, were among them. “We called it the Conference of State Secretaries,” Eichmann told Avner Less. It has come to be known as the Wannsee Conference.
Masters of Death (285)
.gif)
 |
| During my first visit in 2007 |
The Conference had originally been called for December 8, but the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour and the launching of the Soviet offensive against the German siege of Moscow forced a postponement. The minutes do not openly describe the killing programme, but none of the high-ranking participants from the various government ministries could have been in any doubt what Heydrich meant when he said that the remnant of Jews who survived forced labour would have to be “appropriately dealt with.” Adolf Eichmann, the specialist on the “Jewish question” in the Reich Security Main Office run by Heydrich, provided the population statistics, which overstated the number of Jews in Europe by some two million. Much of the conference was taken up by the question of whether Jews of mixed ancestry (Mischlinge) and Jews in mixed marriages were to be included in the “final solution.” The ϟϟ was forced by considerations of public morale to respect these distinctions in Germany itself. In the occupied areas, however, the Nazis made no exceptions for part-Jews or Jews in mixed marriages.
Stackelberg & Winkle The Nazi Germany Sourcebook: An Anthology of Texts (345-346)
By the time of the conference, important preliminary decisions had been made on individual points discussed at the meeting. Hinrich Lohse had asked in a letter "Subject: Jewish executions" on November 15, 1941 from Berlin:
Should this be done regardless of age and gender and economic interests [for example, the Wehrmacht in skilled workers in armaments factories]? It goes without saying that the purification of Jews from the East is an urgent task; but their solution must be brought into harmony with the needs of the war economy . So far, I have not been able to take such an instruction from the orders on the Jewish question in the 'brown folder' or from other decrees.
 |
| During my 2020 senior class trip |
The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories replied on December 18, 1941 that in the meantime, oral discussions had clarified and that economic issues should be "fundamentally disregarded in the settlement of the problem". On December 16, 1941, at a government meeting, Hans Frank spoke of the intention to make the General Government "free of Jews" and referred to the upcoming "big meeting in Berlin" at Heydrich's. It is not clear why the conference was postponed by about six weeks. The historian Christian Gerlach in his book Krieg, Ernährung, Völkermord… 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 resulting in a new situation that required fundamental changes to the plans proposed by Heydrich. Such an interpretation however is shared only by a few specialist historians.
At the
memorial and educational site "House of the Wannsee Conference"
my students conduct self-guided tours to their peers over roughly two hours where, in small groups, they gather information on the topic of a chosen room, supervised and supported by the site's educators before presenting their findings to the whole cohort. The main theme they are presented with involves the widespread assumption that the Europe-wide genocide was
decided as an "almost irreversible error in historiography and
journalism" although the conference itself remains of great historical
importance: Here the ongoing genocide was coordinated and brought to the
attention of the highest officials of all important ministries, in
which numerous people subsequently provided organisational support as “desk perpetrators." Through the site's programme they address
the persecution and murder of European Jews, the history of National
Socialism, the events that led up to this history and its aftermath. A number of my students managed to use the experience to write successful research papers for the IBDP's Extended Essay and Internal Assessment in History.
On the ground floor of the house, the permanent exhibition "The Wannsee Conference and the Genocide of European Jews" provides information about the process of exclusion, persecution, expulsion, ghettoisation and extermination of Jews in the German sphere of influence between 1933 and 1945. When we visited in October 2020 the permanent exhibition was revised again and now bears the heading “The meeting at Wannsee and the murder of European Jews”. It was here at the conference that the responsibilities for the deportation and extermination campaigns started were clarified with the measures for their implementation coordinated and their timings determined. Finally, the groups of those Jews who were destined for deportation and thus for extermination were defined here. This required the cooperation of a multitude of institutions that had not previously been informed about the “final solution”.
The contents recorded in the minutes of the Wannsee Conference include Heydrich's announcement that he had been appointed by Göring as “Commissioner for the preparation of the final solution to the European Jewish question” and that the Reichsführer ϟϟ and Chief of the German Police- Himmler- was responsible who wanted to use the conference to coordinate with the central authorities directly involved. Heydrich reported on the emigration of around 537,000 Jews from the "Altreich", Austria, as well as Bohemia and Moravia, which were to be replaced by "the evacuation of the Jews to the East" after "prior approval by the Führer". Around eleven million Jews would be considered for the “final solution to the European Jewish question”. This number also included "religious Jews" from the unoccupied part of France, England, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and other neutral or opposing states outside the German sphere of influence.
The protocol further stated that In large labour columns, with separation of the sexes, the able-bodied Jews are being led into these areas to build roads, although a large part will undoubtedly be lost through natural reduction. Any remaining stock 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 construction when released.
In the process, "Europe from west to east" would be combed through because of “socio-political necessities” and to free up living space in the Reich territory. First, the German Jews were to be transported to transit ghettos and from there further to the east. Jews over the age of 65 and Jews with war invalidity or bearers of the Iron Cross I would be sent to the Theresienstadt ghetto which would "turn off the many interventions in one fell swoop". After possible difficulties in the “evacuation operation” in the “occupied or influenced European territories” had been addressed and discussed, the question of how to deal with “Jewish mixed race” and “mixed marriages” was addressed.
The protocol further states that the Nuremberg Laws should "to a certain extent" form the basis for discussions. In fact, Heydrich's suggestions went far beyond that: As a rule, "mixed race 1st degree" ("half-Jews") were to 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 exemptions could only be granted by the highest party authorities. Every "1st degree hybrid" who was allowed to remain in the German Reich was to be sterilised . "Mixed race 2nd degree" ("quarter Jews ") were as a rule to be put on an equal footing with the "German-blooded", unless they were classified as Jews due to their conspicuous Jewish appearance or poor police and political record. In the case of existing "mixed marriages" between "full Jews" and "German-blooded" people, the Jewish part should either be "evacuated" or sent to Theresienstadt if resistance from German relatives was to be expected. Further regulations were addressed for “mixed marriages” in which 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 suggested that the compulsory divorce of "mixed marriages" be made mandatory and that all "first-degree mixed race" be sterilised. Since no agreement could be reached on these points, these detailed questions were postponed to the follow-up conferences. Josef Bühler, Hans Frank's State Secretary in the Office of the Governor General, urged Heydrich at the conference to start the measures on Polish territory in the so-called "General Government" because he saw no transport problems there and "to solve the Jewish question in this area as quickly as possible." In any case, the majority of these Jews were considered unable to work and "as carriers of the disease are an eminent danger."
.gif)
Standing in front of a display containing the minutes of the conference in 2017, and the room recreated for the outstanding BBC documentary series Auschwitz: The Nazis and the 'Final Solution' (2005). Of
the fourteen participants invited and sat around a table in this room
discussing the logistics of mass murder, eight held doctorates or
comparable university degrees. The minutes of the Wannsee Conference,
copies of which were displayed within the glass of the table I'm
standing over (since changed after a recent refurbishment post-Wuhan
'flu) 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
for the Wilhelmstrasse trial. Although there was not yet an
implementable overall plan for the “final solution”, the protocol is
considered to be the key source for the organisation of genocide which
Holocaust deniers therefore claim is fake, usually by referring to a
book by Robert Kempner in which he mixed images of facsimiles with
copies despite nevertheless correctly reproducing the text itself.
Historians Norbert Kampe and Christian Mentel have refuted these false allegations.
How
the room appears today, 2020. On August 7 and 13, 1941,Eichmann
requested that the Reich Association of Jews in Germany to provide
statistical information on Jews in Europe.His Unit IV B 4 compared these
figures with information from the occupation authorities and subtracted
the numbers of victims of the Holocaust in Lithuania, Latvia and
Estonia,which were referred to as "Jew-free". The obviously excessive
figure 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 typo; Ahlrich Meyer traces it back to
an estimate by Theodor Dannecker. According to Eichmann in his trial in
Jerusalem in 1961, the minutes of the conference are "an accurate
reproduction of the content of the conference". Heydrich made it
important that all the essential details were recorded so that the
participants could later adhere to them. Only the shorthand discussion
after the conference had not been recorded. At his trial Eichmann
recalled
Eichmann contradicted the protocol on some points at the time, especially with regard to the importance of his own position at the conference. The total duration of this conference recorded in the minutes of about one and an half hours, as stated by him is, however, undisputed. Eichmann, “the chief architect of the Final Solution,” eventually
was convicted of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity and hanged in
Jerusalem in 1962. He had been actively involved at Wannsee, writing
Heydrich’s speech and overseeing the stenographer's record of the meeting, which Eichmann then
edited. Wannsee’s spirit, not reflected in the protocol, is revealed by
Eichmann’s first-hand description of “an atmosphere of agreement” and
even “boundless enthusiasm” despite the “usually hesitating” Bühler and
Stuckart. However, his reliability is questionable, considering he
sought to “portray himself as dutiful errand boy, with neither
initiative nor knowledge” and focussing on supposed enthusiasm of the
law-abiding state secretaries helps build Eichmann’s case of conformity
and obedience. A further limitation is the testimony’s erratic
organisation and incoherent answers as when he related the discussion of
the means of killing at Wannsee, making it difficult to follow. Taking
place almost two decades after the Holocaust, his specific recollections
of Wannsee are sometimes lacking or flawed, as when he supposes that
Kreuger, not even present, spoke about technical details of genocide.
Nonetheless, Eichmann does give crucial insight into Wannsee’s
significance in ensuring widespread state complicity to genocide: “nail
down the Secretaries of State, to commit them most bindingly, to catch
them by their words.”
When Robert Kempner, in charge of prosecuting the German ministries at Nuremberg, unearthed the last copy of the Minutes in 1947, he deemed it “perhaps the most shameful document of modern
history.” As the only available record of the Conference, the protocol
is valuable in revealing the meeting’s occurrences, its significance to
the final solution and widespread state complicity in the bureaucratic
planning of genocide. It originated as notes, written by a stenotypist
and was heavily edited by Eichmann and Heydrich to produce a document
written in euphemisms and camouflage language. It is “deliberately
opaque,” seen for example through the word “evacuation” a euphemism for
elimination, serving the purpose of informing those with contextual
knowledge and not shocking the unintended who could have come across
this widely distributed Protocol. Such intentionally ambiguous
terminology limits understanding of the meeting’s precise purpose and
role in the Final Solution, creating controversy on whether genocide was
even discussed. Considering the purpose of the conference was to
establish clarity on fundamental questions, the purpose of the protocol
was to record what Heydrich wanted of the meeting which, whilst valuable
in reflecting Heydrich’s agenda for the implementation of the Final
Solution, is limited by not specifying the individual roles of
attendees.
A
third of the conference participants ended up not surviving the war.
Heydrich died on June 4, 1942 as a result of an assassination attempt in
Prague as related on my page about Nazi-era Prague. Roland Freisler was
killed in a British bombing attack. Both Rudolf Lange and Alfred Meyer
committed suicide. Martin Luther died in the spring of 1945 as a result
of his imprisonment in Sachsenhausen concentration
camp. Heinrich Müller was considered dead by the post-war authorities.
Before the minutes of the Wannsee Conference were discovered, two
participants were already executed for war crimes committed- Eberhard
Schöngarth was sentenced to death and executed by a British military
tribunal 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 opening of the Wilhelmstrasse Trial;
Erich Neumann died in 1948. Georg Leibbrandt and Gerhard Klopfer
were both released from custody in 1949. Otto Hofmann was sentenced to
25 years in prison in the follow-up trial of the ϟϟ Race and Settlement
Main Office in Nuremberg in 1948, but was released from Landsberg
correctional facility in 1954. Wilhelm Stuckart was sentenced to a
sentence of three years and ten months in the Wilhelmstrasse Trial, but
was released in 1949 as internment detention was taken into account.
After the war as already related above, Adolf Eichmann fled to
Argentina, but was kidnapped by the Israeli secret service Mossad,
brought to Israel and executed in Jerusalem in 1962 after his
sensational trial.
I had
the privilege of having Avner Avraham, former Mossad agent and curator
of the 'To Catch a Nazi' exhibition, give me a tour and remarkable
history of the capture of Adolf Eichmann. Here I'm standing beside the
bullet proof booth in which Eichmann was held during the course of his
trial in 1961. The Wannsee Conference is often regarded as the determining factor for the development of the Final Solution, reflected in Longerich’s argument that the scope of deportation, (i.e. defining “who was Jewish, who was Mischling,”) was a prerequisite for determining “who (if anybody) should be spared.” Thus Wannsee significantly broadened the scope of genocide involving Mischlinge, particularly in occupied territories, de jure bearing historical responsibility. Additionally, both Heydrich’s invitation letter and the protocol's opening convey the message of “a genocidal programme only now taking shape”.
How
the room appears today, 2020. On August 7 and 13, 1941,Eichmann
requested that the Reich Association of Jews in Germany to provide
statistical information on Jews in Europe.His Unit IV B 4 compared these
figures with information from the occupation authorities and subtracted
the numbers of victims of the Holocaust in Lithuania, Latvia and
Estonia,which were referred to as "Jew-free". The obviously excessive
figure 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 typo; Ahlrich Meyer traces it back to
an estimate by Theodor Dannecker. According to Eichmann in his trial in
Jerusalem in 1961, the minutes of the conference are "an accurate
reproduction of the content of the conference". Heydrich made it
important that all the essential details were recorded so that the
participants could later adhere to them. Only the shorthand discussion
after the conference had not been recorded. At his trial Eichmann
recalled that at the end of this Wannsee Conference, Heydrich, Muller and my humble self, settled down comfortably by the fireplace, and that then for the first time I saw Heydrich smoke a cigar or cigarette, and I was thinking: today Heydrich is smoking, something I have not seen before. And he drinks cognac - since I had not seen Heydrich take any alcoholic drink in years. After this Wannsee Conference we were sitting together peacefully, and not in order to talk shop, but in order to relax after the long hours of strain.
Eichmann contradicted the protocol on some points at the time, especially with regard to the importance of his own position at the conference. The total duration of this conference recorded in the minutes of about one and an half hours, as stated by him is, however, undisputed. Eichmann, “the chief architect of the Final Solution,” eventually
was convicted of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity and hanged in
Jerusalem in 1962. He had been actively involved at Wannsee, writing
Heydrich’s speech and overseeing the stenographer's record of the meeting, which Eichmann then
edited. Wannsee’s spirit, not reflected in the protocol, is revealed by
Eichmann’s first-hand description of “an atmosphere of agreement” and
even “boundless enthusiasm” despite the “usually hesitating” Bühler and
Stuckart. However, his reliability is questionable, considering he
sought to “portray himself as dutiful errand boy, with neither
initiative nor knowledge” and focussing on supposed enthusiasm of the
law-abiding state secretaries helps build Eichmann’s case of conformity
and obedience. A further limitation is the testimony’s erratic
organisation and incoherent answers as when he related the discussion of
the means of killing at Wannsee, making it difficult to follow. Taking
place almost two decades after the Holocaust, his specific recollections
of Wannsee are sometimes lacking or flawed, as when he supposes that
Kreuger, not even present, spoke about technical details of genocide.
Nonetheless, Eichmann does give crucial insight into Wannsee’s
significance in ensuring widespread state complicity to genocide: “nail
down the Secretaries of State, to commit them most bindingly, to catch
them by their words.” |
| My 2020 cohort |
The
text of the protocol documents the intention to murder all European
Jews, the agreement in principle and the effective participation of the
Nazi 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 cloak for the murder of Jews who survived
forced labour, as the context does not allow any other conclusion.
Hans Mommsen does contradict this by asserting that it was by no means a
blank phrase; Heydrich actually planned to exterminate a large part of
the Jews through labour, but the final solution to the Jewish question
was only a long-term goal, before which the surviving Jews would still
be transported further east. Here the settlement or reservation solution
was renewed, as in the Nisko and Madagascar plans considered from 1939
to 1941 which "can hardly be viewed as a more humane alternative." .gif)
According
to Eichmann's own testimony in his trial, the actual language was
unmistakable: "It was spoken of killing and eliminating and
exterminating."
Amongst specialist historians, most deduce from the extermination campaigns that had already started and the minutes of the conference itself that it had previously een decided by the highest authorities to expand the murder campaigns into a systematic genocide, to which all European Jews without distinction should fall victim. The figures for the overall planning included the Jews from England and Spain: their inclusion was unrealistic in view of the unfavourable development of the war for the Nazis at the time. Peter Longerich comes to the conclusion that, even after the conference, there was no fixed plan as to how long and by what means the genocide should be carried out. However, it can be proven that afterwards “the deportations were extended to the entire German area” and a “comprehensive forced labour program” began to take effect.
Standing in front and as it appears in Fabrice Le Hénanff's graphic novel. Thomas Sandkühler points out that the decisive effect was that up to the conference in Eastern Galicia, Jews classified as “unable to work” were murdered; only then did the murder order apply to all Jews except for the very few Jews who had been declared indispensable in the oil industry. The Wannsee Conference was thus a bureaucratic clarification of the responsibilities of the agencies involved and the group of people to be murdered. Such a decision could in no case be made by subordinate persons, but only at the very highest level and only then could the leadership of the Reich Security Main Office be established and cooperation and coordination between the agencies involved ensured.
.gif)
According
to Eichmann's own testimony in his trial, the actual language was
unmistakable: "It was spoken of killing and eliminating and
exterminating."Amongst specialist historians, most deduce from the extermination campaigns that had already started and the minutes of the conference itself that it had previously een decided by the highest authorities to expand the murder campaigns into a systematic genocide, to which all European Jews without distinction should fall victim. The figures for the overall planning included the Jews from England and Spain: their inclusion was unrealistic in view of the unfavourable development of the war for the Nazis at the time. Peter Longerich comes to the conclusion that, even after the conference, there was no fixed plan as to how long and by what means the genocide should be carried out. However, it can be proven that afterwards “the deportations were extended to the entire German area” and a “comprehensive forced labour program” began to take effect.
Standing in front and as it appears in Fabrice Le Hénanff's graphic novel. Thomas Sandkühler points out that the decisive effect was that up to the conference in Eastern Galicia, Jews classified as “unable to work” were murdered; only then did the murder order apply to all Jews except for the very few Jews who had been declared indispensable in the oil industry. The Wannsee Conference was thus a bureaucratic clarification of the responsibilities of the agencies involved and the group of people to be murdered. Such a decision could in no case be made by subordinate persons, but only at the very highest level and only then could the leadership of the Reich Security Main Office be established and cooperation and coordination between the agencies involved ensured.
When it was over, Heydrich was relieved and satisfied. “Happily,” he would write a month later, “[the conference] has settled the basic outlines for the practical implementation of the Final Solution of the Jewish question.” His intention had been to establish his ultimate authority over the Final Solution. His colleagues in the government and the party had been more than willing to accede responsibility for the mass murder of eleven million people to the ϟϟ. “After the conference,” Eichmann says in his memoir, “as I recall, Heydrich, Müller and your humble servant sat cosily around a fireplace. I noticed for the first time that Heydrich was smoking. Not only that, but he had a cognac. Normally he touched nothing alcoholic. The only other time I had seen him drinking was at an office party years before…. [So] we sat around peacefully after our Wannsee Conference, not just talking shop but giving ourselves a rest after so many taxing hours.”Masters of Death (288)
 |
| 2016 class trip |
Wannsee's controversial purpose leaves room for interpretation on its overall. Lannahan argues genocide had been decided earlier and the concept of a “coming Final Solution” part of Heydrich’s self-aggrandisement plan and “love of the political limelight.”] Eichmann’s testimony supports the argument that Heydrich’s focus was “to extend the scope of his influence.” Eichmann’s testimony does serve to mitigate his personal role and portray Heydrich as the authority figure. Rees however, considers Wannsee a larger attempt on behalf of
the ϟϟ to establish their “control of the whole deportation process.”
The difficulty in understanding Wannsee's purpose frames the greater
debate on its significance, though the protocol and invitation suggest
that Himmler and his emissary considered it significant in determining
the Holocaust. 
Wannsee’s significance to the development of the Final Solution is based on its role of coordinating both prior killing initiatives and government organs. The necessity to coordinate the “variety of killing initiatives that had emerged from a number of sources within the Nazi state” in the autumn of 1941 is what Rees regards as Wannsee’s purpose, supported by Eichmann who says a “coordinated solution” was necessary. Hence, Wannsee’s importance can be seen as administrative, “…to ensure the cooperation of the various departments in conducting the deportations,” further supported by attendees being of the Staatsekretare, the Reich’s “essential medium of policy coordination.”
However, if Wannsee was an administrative meeting for planning the coordination of previous initiatives and government cooperation, why ignore the pressing issues of finding destinations for transport? Claims that Wannsee significantly shaped deportation arraignments, can be effectively disregarded when studying the list of attendees and the lack of any transport specialist or member of the Financial Ministry. Hence, Wannsee was not fully significant in determining the practical aspects of committing genocide but rather to the development of the Final Solution, by determining the scope of deportation, and planning government and policy cooperation for the Final Solution..gif)
Whilst Wannsee has been described as “the single most important event in the history of the Nazis’ ‘Final Solution’,” this is, Rees argues, an epithet “it does not quite merit” given that the bureaucracy of genocide was “decided elsewhere,” though precisely where, when and by whom is subject to debate. Rees, taking a quasi-intentionalist stance, asserts Hitler’s discussions in December 1941 were most significant to the decision making process given Hitler’s agentive control “made all this suffering enter the world.” Göbbels’s diary supports the intentionalist argument. However, Overy and Roseman have examined Wannsee’s role in the wider context of genocide, limiting it to “one of many stepping stones in the middle of a long messy process of turning vicious anti-Semitic discrimination into stark mass murder.” Nevertheless, Eichmann’s testimony in which he claims the preparatory work (prior decisions and genocidal activity and gassing) were already “known to the participants of the Wannsee Conference”, support the conclusion that genocide and its means were conceptualised elsewhere.
Rees goes on to argue that in terms of Wannsee’s role in developing the final solution, it did not catalyse genocide and was not fully causal to the great expansion of murder in 1942 by questioning why “the discussions at Wannsee had no immediate effect upon Auschwitz.” Browning insists that before killings became truly comprehensive, a further decision must have taken place, interpreting Wannsee as less significant to developments of the “Solution”. Roseman argues that “after Wannsee the operation didn’t run like clockwork,” demonstrating the lack of subsequent 'progress'; Eichmann’s testimony crucially emphasises that Himmler kept issuing orders.” The close relationship between Himmler’s visits and development of extermination support Eichmann’s claims.
After the the
war, the Red Army and later the American Army used the property. From
1947 the SPD moved in and used the house as a school camp. My students are shown in the Joseph Wulf
Library, located on the building’s second floor and which has remained
part of the memorial’s educational concept from the start. The
collection focuses on the history of the Jews in Europe, anti-Semitism,
persecution and genocide, National Socialism, racism, neo-Nazism,
remembrance culture, treatment of Nazi history after 1945 and memorial
site educational studies. The book collection currently includes some
40,000 monographs and 18,000 periodical volumes. In addition the library
holds a large collection of documentary and feature films and a
considerable set of periodicals and documents on microfilm and
microfiche. My students were able to search through various databases
for their IBDP internal assessments in History. In 1966 the
historian Joseph Wulf, who survived the Auschwitz concentration camp ,
founded an association for research into National Socialism. The
building was to be rededicated as a documentation centre 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
historical preservation criteria and for use as a memorial. In 1992 the
memorial and educational centre that would become the House of the
Wannsee Conference opened in the rooms of the villa; it bears the name
of Joseph Wulf. Deeply traumatised by his camp experiences, lonely after
the death of his wife and disappointed by the lack of interest in the
Holocaust or seeking justice, Wulf killed himself on October 10, 1974.
In his last letter to his son David on August 2, 1974, he wrote down a
list of his disappointments, for example “9. I know that after 1945
Ilya Ehrenburg wrote an 'In memoriam' for the murdered Jews and the
Soviet Union did not allow the book to appear” and “I published 18 books
here about the Third Reich, and none of them had any effect. You can
document yourself utterly with the Germans, it can be the most
democratic government in Bonn - and the mass murderers go around freely,
have their houses and grow flowers."
Wannsee’s significance to the development of the Final Solution is based on its role of coordinating both prior killing initiatives and government organs. The necessity to coordinate the “variety of killing initiatives that had emerged from a number of sources within the Nazi state” in the autumn of 1941 is what Rees regards as Wannsee’s purpose, supported by Eichmann who says a “coordinated solution” was necessary. Hence, Wannsee’s importance can be seen as administrative, “…to ensure the cooperation of the various departments in conducting the deportations,” further supported by attendees being of the Staatsekretare, the Reich’s “essential medium of policy coordination.”
However, if Wannsee was an administrative meeting for planning the coordination of previous initiatives and government cooperation, why ignore the pressing issues of finding destinations for transport? Claims that Wannsee significantly shaped deportation arraignments, can be effectively disregarded when studying the list of attendees and the lack of any transport specialist or member of the Financial Ministry. Hence, Wannsee was not fully significant in determining the practical aspects of committing genocide but rather to the development of the Final Solution, by determining the scope of deportation, and planning government and policy cooperation for the Final Solution.
.gif)
Whilst Wannsee has been described as “the single most important event in the history of the Nazis’ ‘Final Solution’,” this is, Rees argues, an epithet “it does not quite merit” given that the bureaucracy of genocide was “decided elsewhere,” though precisely where, when and by whom is subject to debate. Rees, taking a quasi-intentionalist stance, asserts Hitler’s discussions in December 1941 were most significant to the decision making process given Hitler’s agentive control “made all this suffering enter the world.” Göbbels’s diary supports the intentionalist argument. However, Overy and Roseman have examined Wannsee’s role in the wider context of genocide, limiting it to “one of many stepping stones in the middle of a long messy process of turning vicious anti-Semitic discrimination into stark mass murder.” Nevertheless, Eichmann’s testimony in which he claims the preparatory work (prior decisions and genocidal activity and gassing) were already “known to the participants of the Wannsee Conference”, support the conclusion that genocide and its means were conceptualised elsewhere.
Rees goes on to argue that in terms of Wannsee’s role in developing the final solution, it did not catalyse genocide and was not fully causal to the great expansion of murder in 1942 by questioning why “the discussions at Wannsee had no immediate effect upon Auschwitz.” Browning insists that before killings became truly comprehensive, a further decision must have taken place, interpreting Wannsee as less significant to developments of the “Solution”. Roseman argues that “after Wannsee the operation didn’t run like clockwork,” demonstrating the lack of subsequent 'progress'; Eichmann’s testimony crucially emphasises that Himmler kept issuing orders.” The close relationship between Himmler’s visits and development of extermination support Eichmann’s claims.
The Wannsee Conference is the subject of now three feature films. Here is the start of the 1984 German television production Die Wannseekonferenz which presents the conference in real time. Directed by Heinz Schirk based on the play by Paul Mommertz. It shows a disturbing performance of charm and calculation by Dietrich Mattausch as Heydrich with Gerd Böckmann as Eichmann. In 1987 the cinema version followed which was filmed at the conference venue and was based on records and minutes kept of the conference, spoken by unnervingly convincing actors in carefully reconstructed surroundings and wearing meticulously authentic uniforms. In it however, Kritzinger is portrayed as a skeptic which does not correspond to the
historical facts that have been handed down. In his review for The American Historical Review, Alan Steinweis notes scenes where Heydrich pulls Krtizinger and Stuckart aside as dramatic inventions. Nicholas K. Johnson (80) laments that Steinweis "unfortunately reviews the film as historians are prone to—he focuses on several scenes that obviously contain fictional elements, or “artistic license,” and avoids engaging with the film’s broader arguments and vision. The review also compares Conspiracy with Die Wannseekonferenz and actually argues that the former may be more historically accurate because it discusses the killing process in more detail, as mentioned by Eichmann during his interrogation."
Here is the entrance as shown in the film and from the same position during my 2021 class trip: 
The film won numerous international prizes, including the Adolf Grimme Prize. in his review for Der Spiegel, Heinz Höhne was unimpressed:
Screenwriter Paul Mommertz, 54, is delighted: 'An optimal film, on a remarkable level.' The praise goes above all to the director Heinz Schirk, and rightly so: he understood it with a squad of proven actors, above all Dietrich Mattausch in the role of Heydrich and Gerd Böckmann as Eichmann, the Mommertz play that atmosphere of racist mania for cleansing and callous bureaucratic perfection that made the Wannsee Conference the most horrific Hitlerite in Germany. But what is presented here as a document-safe reconstruction of contemporary history, on closer inspection, proves to be a product of televised fabulous fabulousness and combination. Because: This is not the Wannsee Conference as historians know it. It's the Wannsee Conference a la Paul Mommertz.
Wannseekonferenz appears to be the better movie with Conspiracy coming across as a flashy imitation, although watching both films is instructive. Both have the same people attending the conference, but how each attendee is portrayed at the conference is strikingly different. Most of the attendees in Conspiracy (except for Dr. Klopfer) are viewed as flawed intellectuals, but full of grace, charm and manners (which makes a nice stark comparison with what they are discussing). Almost all of the attendees in Die Wannseekonferenz (except for the female secretary) are shown as crude, corrupt pigs that differ with each other only as to how to divide their 'power'. I'm tempted to have my students research the 'real' Major Lange. The crude drunken Major Lange of Die Wannseekonferenz seems more likely to be butchering the Jews of Riga than the soft spoken, charming, well-mannered Major Lange of Conspiracy.
The only exception is Jakob Diehl, who plays his Gestapo character Müller largely "in stubborn silence": "Fifteen men decide on the genocide, but only one gives it away on his face." By meticulously reconstructing the sets and the historical details, Geschonneck exacerbated the "dilemma of historical television", which consists in being all too easily mistaken for an authentic historical source. Timo Niemeier dissented, stating that the film "demands a lot from the audience" and is therefore "a must-see". The film "breaks with established film mechanisms and makes the Nazis' perfidious plan and their mentality all too clear. The way the mass murder of millions of people is discussed here as if it were a completely normal major project of the administrative apparatus, in which only details and competencies are at stake is simply breathtaking." Finally, in a detailed review Peter Kümmel praised the film in Die Zeit as "great" and wrote how the production "has the effect of making its viewers ask themselves: 'Are circumstances conceivable under which I would have attended this conference?' One is so spellbound that one does not miss a word", concluding that "[t]elevision cannot be better than this". .gif)
.gif)
The memory of the Holocaust, symbolised by events such as the Wannsee Conference, plays a central role in shaping modern Germany’s national identity and policies. In post-war Germany, the emergence of the concept of Vergangenheitsbewältigung (the struggle to come to terms with the past) has been a critical aspect of the country’s effort to reconcile with its Nazi legacy. Scholars like Broszat and Friedländer have highlighted that the process of Vergangenheitsbewältigung is not simply about acknowledging historical facts, but involves a profound moral reckoning with the crimes of the Holocaust. In particular, Broszat has argued that German society’s confrontation with the Holocaust has driven a national ethos that seeks to uphold democratic values, human rights, and tolerance, as a direct response to the atrocities symbolised by the Wannsee Conference. This has led to the institutionalisation of Holocaust remembrance in Germany, including the establishment of numerous memorials, museums, and educational programmes dedicated to ensuring that the horrors of the Holocaust are not forgotten. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, opened in Berlin in 2005, stands as a powerful testament to this commitment. However, this focus on memory and commemoration also reflects an ongoing struggle within German society over how to properly remember and learn from this dark chapter in its history, a theme explored by Friedländer in his analysis of post-war German memory culture..gif)
Germany’s legal system has also undergone significant reforms in response to the legacy of Nazi crimes. The post-war Grundgesetz (Basic Law), adopted in 1949, sought to enshrine principles of human dignity and equality, in stark contrast to the racial policies discussed at Wannsee. Legal scholar Neumann has argued that the Wannsee Conference serves as a constant reminder of the dangers of unchecked state power, which has influenced Germany’s commitment to constitutional democracy and the rule of law. Moreover, the prosecutions of Nazi war criminals continued well into the 21st century, with the 2011 trial of former concentration camp guard John Demjanjuk serving as a stark reminder of the enduring pursuit of justice for Holocaust perpetrators. This legal legacy underscores the enduring relevance of the Wannsee Conference to modern German society’s efforts to confront its past through judicial means..gif)
The
impact of the Wannsee Conference is also deeply embedded in Germany’s
educational system. Since the 1960s, German schools have been required
to teach the history of the Holocaust as part of the national
curriculum, a reflection of the state’s commitment to ensuring that
future generations understand the atrocities committed in their
country’s name. Kershaw's pointed out that this emphasis on Holocaust
education stems from a recognition of the moral responsibility Germany
bears as the instigator of the genocide. The Wannsee Conference, as a
key moment in the planning of the Holocaust, is often highlighted in
textbooks and classroom discussions as a symbol of the systematic nature
of Nazi crimes. In addition to formal education, programmes such as the
Stolpersteine project, which places small brass plaques in front of the
homes of Holocaust victims, help to personalise the history of the
Holocaust and connect it to local communities across Germany. However,
Kershaw and other scholars have noted that the challenge of Holocaust
education lies not only in conveying the facts of history but also in
combating rising trends of Holocaust denial and revisionism, which have
gained traction in certain far-right movements within Germany. This
ongoing battle over historical memory reflects the continuing relevance
of the Wannsee Conference in shaping public discourse about the
Holocaust..gif)
.gif)
In 1874, a zinc copy of the monument was erected here in Wannsee in a public park near the Colonie Alsen association of war veterans. This monument was paid for by banker Wilhelm Conrad. A path leading up to the statue was fittingly dubbed the Straße zum Löwen, i.e. the Road to the Lion. This copy has replaced the reliefs of the four Danish officers with a single image of the German officer Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia, in effect reversing the meaning of the original monument. In 1938, the Danish press reported the existence of the copy of the historic monument and, after the Danish embassy complained about the poor condition of the lion which by then had become overgrown by trees and bushes, it was moved to its present location on Heckeshorn (right next to the memorial site where it can be seen behind my 2017 cohort sitting in the garden of the Haus der Wannsee-Konfernz, looking at towards the lake). Since then, the "Straße zum Löwen", which ended at the old location, no longer leads to the memorial.
 |
| Franz Alfred Six (1909 - 1975) |
With the anschluss with Austria and the break-up of Czechoslovakia, the institute received “special orders”. During the attack on Poland, the special knowledge of some employees who were assigned to SD task forces or who were involved in the organisation of “resettlements” from the Baltic States was used. In the course of these "resettlements" the ϟϟ murdered not only Jews but also patients in psychiatric clinics in order to make room for the resettled people. The employees of the institute were accepted into the SA and wore the uniform of the security service. Many of them were Germans abroad, often from the Baltic States or other parts of the former Russian Empire and assigned to the task forces of the SD in the east. After the institute was relocated to Plankenwarth Castle near Graz in 1943, another type of "Eastern work" took place in the villa on Wannsee: maps for warfare were drawn and target documents for air raids were produced. Sabotage actions against the Soviet Union were also prepared here. Under the cover name “Company Zeppelin” agents were trained at Wannsee whose task it was to organise uprisings behind the Soviet front.
After the war the villa became part of the Wannsee Hospital together with other neighbouring villas until it was closed in 1971. From 1990 to 2009 the Tannenhof Berlin-Brandenburg association operated the villa as a drug therapy centre. The International Montessori School is now using the building since a renewed renovation in accordance with its status as a listed building.
Disguised as a "broadcast technical research institute", special antennae were installed and the largest and most important radio monitoring system in Germany was built. Strictly shielded from the public as listening to "enemy broadcasts" was forbidden under threat of death, the "Special Service Seehaus" recorded broadcasts in 36 languages from 1941 onwards and employed around five hundred people. To the annoyance of Reich Propaganda Minister Goebbels, who was also sitting in the Sweden pavilion with his "Interradio" staff, the reports from the Propaganda Ministry were exposed as lies by the information it gathered on the war situation. Therefore efforts were made to keep the messages received there as secret as possible. The monitoring system gained an important strategic importance especially towards the end of the war. Today there are apparently apartments in the house, which has been renamed the Sweden Pavilion again after renovation and remodelling.
Waldhof am Bogensee, former weekend retreat of Josef Goebbels north of Berlin near Lanke. It was a gift to Goebbels from the city of Berlin back in 1936 for his 39th birthday. “What a jewel the house has become, so idyllic, romantic, and peaceful,” he would later write of it, using it as an illicit 'love nest.'
With the Russians now so close, on the last day of January 1945, Goebbels had sent Schwägermann out to Lanke, his lakeside mansion on the Bogensee, to evacuate Magda, their six children and two governesses into the air raid shelter at Schwanenwerder. The next day he declared Berlin a ‘fortress city.’ Surrounded by her brood, Magda was in a world of self-delusion. From Berthe the milliner’s she purchased a green velvet hat, a black turban, and a brown hat trimmed with fur; she mentioned that ‘when things calmed down’ she’d like to have a brown hat remodelled. ‘The news you’ll be hearing isn’t rosy,’ she wrote to Harald, now in British captivity, on February 10. ‘We’re all sound in heart and health; but as the whole family belongs together at times like these we’ve shut down Bogensee and we’ve all moved back into Berlin. Despite all the air raids our house is still standing and everybody here—including your grand-mother and the rest of the family—is well housed. The children find it splendid that there’s no school and, thank God, they’ve noticed nothing of the seriousness of the hour.’ ‘Papa and I,’ she concluded, ‘are full of confidence and we’re doing our duty as best we can.’
Irving (885-886), Goebbels, Mastermind of the Third Reich
.gif)
My 2024 Bavarian International School cohort at the so-called Bridge of Spies, the Glienicke Bridge, over the Havel connecting the Königstraße in Wannsee with the Berliner Straße in the Berlin suburb of Potsdam and as it appeared as part of the border between East and West Berlin during the Cold War. The half-timbered bridge was opened at the end of 1907 as the fourth structure at this location under the name Kaiser Wilhelm Bridge, but this name didn't catch on.
During the last days of April 1945, during the fighting between the Wehrmacht and the Red Army in the area of the Berlin suburbs of Potsdam, the Glienicke Bridge was destroyed. Contrary to reports, it wasn't intentionally blown up by either the Wehrmacht or the Red Army, although explosive charges had been attached to all of the pillars. The engineer who was to blow it up was stationed in one of the last houses on the Potsdam side. An intentional blow-up would have completely destroyed the bridge as an attack by the Red Army from the Berlin side was expected. However, as Red Army troops from the Potsdam town centre approached the bridge, Soviet tanks fired on it and hit two explosive charges that destroyed part of the bridge; all other detonators remained intact.
Between 1962 and 1986, high-ranking agents from both military camps were exchanged three times on the Glienicke Bridge. Among others, the spies Rudolf Ivanovich Abel and Francis Gary Powers were exchanged on February 10, 1962. From 1963, members of the military missions of Czechoslovakia, Poland and Yugoslavia based in West Berlin (and some of their family members) were also allowed to cross the bridge with the appropriate identification papers. In 1973, this regulation was extended to employees of the USSR General Consulate, which had been based in West Berlin since June 1973.
The East German authorities closed the bridge on November 15, 1984 for security reasons, leading to new talks between visiting representatives of the Berlin Senate and the DDR government. This resulted in the West Berlin Senate declaring that it would cover the estimated repair costs of two million marks. Although the paints came from the same West Berlin factory, different shades (DB 601 and D 603) were used, so that the two-tone design was retained in 1985. On March 11, 1988, at around 2 am, three refugees from Potsdam broke through the barriers on the bridge to West Berlin in a stolen standard W50 truck.
