How important was the Wannsee Conference in determining the course of the final solution?
October 7th, 2009 | by admin |On the 20th January 1942 Hitler held a conference in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to decide what to do about the ‘Jewish Problem’. How important do you think this conference was in determining the course of the final solution? Would it have taken the same road without the conference? Ultimately, what impact do you think the conference had on the rest of the war?
Heydrich took charge of the conference but the decision of the final solution had already been taken almost 6 months before.
Adolf Eichmann (Lieutenant Colonel by rank) took the minutes down during that meeting and a lot of that material was recovered making him the most important man there at the time for historical evidence.
The importance of the meeting cannot be dismissed but the actual meeting itself concentrated more on the killing process itself because a variety of initiatives had emerged from a number of sources within the Nazi State and the meeting was to determine its coordinates and to establish beyond doubt that the SS was in charge of the whole deportation process.
Heydrich also announced the formal change in Nazi policy (which most delegates present already knew) that instead of letting the Jews emigrate to countries outside of Nazi control there would now be ‘evacuation’ On arrival in the East these Jews would be sorted out for suitability to perform hard labor and those not selected be immediately executed. There was a lot more discussed then can be listed here but the greatest area of the debate focused around the exact legal definition of ‘Jew" and thus precisely who would be subject to deportation and who would not. To keep this letter shorter further discussions on the immediate problem of the Jews of the ‘General Government’ and the occupied Soviet Union was bought up.
They would be executed or sent to the death camp of Belzec once construction was finished, however millions of other Jews would still remain and the minutes recorded was such that ‘various possible solutions’ were mentioned which was nothing less then a polite phrase to imply that they were all to be executed.
So the answer is that they had already made the decision but were only there to sort out the details of the plan.
2 Responses to “How important was the Wannsee Conference in determining the course of the final solution?”
By ammianus on Oct 7, 2009 | Reply
Not very..
The decision about the Final Solution had already been made; the Wannsee Conference was a summoning of relevant officials and bureaucrats to inform them of their logistical and administrative roles in carrying out the Final Solution.
Even without the Conference, the Final Solution would still have gone ahead.
Heydrich, head of the SD,the Reich Security Service presided over the conference, not Hitler.
References :
By pro_sassenheime on Oct 7, 2009 | Reply
Heydrich took charge of the conference but the decision of the final solution had already been taken almost 6 months before.
Adolf Eichmann (Lieutenant Colonel by rank) took the minutes down during that meeting and a lot of that material was recovered making him the most important man there at the time for historical evidence.
The importance of the meeting cannot be dismissed but the actual meeting itself concentrated more on the killing process itself because a variety of initiatives had emerged from a number of sources within the Nazi State and the meeting was to determine its coordinates and to establish beyond doubt that the SS was in charge of the whole deportation process.
Heydrich also announced the formal change in Nazi policy (which most delegates present already knew) that instead of letting the Jews emigrate to countries outside of Nazi control there would now be ‘evacuation’ On arrival in the East these Jews would be sorted out for suitability to perform hard labor and those not selected be immediately executed. There was a lot more discussed then can be listed here but the greatest area of the debate focused around the exact legal definition of ‘Jew" and thus precisely who would be subject to deportation and who would not. To keep this letter shorter further discussions on the immediate problem of the Jews of the ‘General Government’ and the occupied Soviet Union was bought up.
They would be executed or sent to the death camp of Belzec once construction was finished, however millions of other Jews would still remain and the minutes recorded was such that ‘various possible solutions’ were mentioned which was nothing less then a polite phrase to imply that they were all to be executed.
So the answer is that they had already made the decision but were only there to sort out the details of the plan.
References :
Auschwitz (The Nazis and the Final Solution) by Laurence Rees