Wannsee: The Road to the Final Solution

185 Pages·2022·4.967 MB·English

by  Peter Longerich

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/07/21, SPi
wannsee
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/07/21, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/07/21, SPi
WA N NSE E
THE ROAD TO THE
FINAL SOLUTION
PETER LONGERICH
translated by
LESLEY SHARPE AND JEREMY NOAKES
1
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/07/21, SPi
1
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First published as Wannseekonferenz: Der Weg zur ‘Endlösung’
by Siedler Verlag © Peter Longerich 2016
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First Edition published in 2021
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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/07/21, SPi
Contents
Abbreviations vii
Prologue: A meeting followed by breakfast 1
The location 6
The initial invitation 8
1. The background to the conference: The ‘removal
of the Jews’, 1933–41 11
‘Territorial solutions’ 12
Mass shootings and genocide in the Soviet Union in summer 1941 16
Deportations 18
Regional ‘final solutions’ 25
Threats of extermination 31
‘Action needed’: the close of 1941 32
2. The Wannsee Conference 35
The participants: a ‘final solution’ based on a division
of labour between the SS and the bureaucracy 38
Representatives of the ‘central authorities’ 39
Representatives of the civil occupation authorities 48
SS functionaries 52
The minutes 59
3. The ‘final solution’ becomes a reality 85
‘Extermination through labour’ 85
Deportations and mass murder in spring 1942 88
The escalation of ‘Jewish policy’ in May/June 1942 94
Conclusion: The Wannsee Conference in historical context 103
Acknowledgements 107
Appendix: Original minutes 109
Notes 125
Bibliography 157
Subject Index 173
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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/07/21, SPi
Abbreviations
AA Auswärtiges Amt (Foreign Ministry)
ADAP Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen Politik
AO Auslandsorganisation der NSDAP (NSDAP/AO)
APL Archivum Panstwowe w Lublinie
BAB Bundesarchiv, Abteilung Berlin
BAF Bundesarchiv Militärarchiv, Abteilung Freiburg
BDC Berlin Document Center
CDJC Centre de documentaton Juive Contemporaine
DG Durchgangsstraße
DNVP Deutschnationale Volkspartei (German National People’s Party)
EG Einsatzgruppe
EK Einsatzkommando
Gestapa Geheimes Staatspolizeiamt
Gestapo Geheime Staatspolizei
GG Geschichte und Gesellschaft
HGS Holocaust and Genocide Studies
HSSPF Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer (Higher SS and Police Leader)
HZ Historische Zeitschrift
IfZ Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich
IMT International Military Tribunal
KZ Konzentrationslager (also Kl)
NSDAP Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist
German Workers’ Party)
OA Osobyi Archive, Moscow (special archive)
PAAA Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes, Berlin
RGBl. Reichsgesetzblatt
RSHA Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Head Office)
SA Sturmabteilung
SD Sicherheitsdienst
SK Sonderkommando
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viii Wannsee
SS Schutzstaffel
SSPF SS- und Polizeiführer (SS and Police Leader)
StA Staatsarchiv
StAnw Staatsanwaltschaft
TNA The National Archives, London
ToE The Trial of Adolf Eichmann
TWC Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals
VAA Vertreter des Auswärtigen Amtes (Foreign Ministry representative)
VEJ Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das
nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933–1945
VfZ Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte
VOGG Verordnungsblatt für das Generalgouvernement
WVHA SS-W irtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt (SS Business and
Administration Head Office)
YIVO YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
ZStL Zentrale Stelle Ludwigsburg
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Prologue
A meeting followed by breakfast
On 20 January 1942 fifteen men met at a luxury villa on the
Wannsee, a lake on Berlin’s western outskirts. They had been
invited by Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Security Head Office
(RSHA), and were almost all high-r anking representatives of the Nazi
state, the Nazi Party, and the SS. They included four state secretaries,*
two further senior officials of equivalent rank, and an undersecretary.
The villa, now the House of the Wannsee Conference, occupies an excep-
tionally attractive position on the lake, its imposing approach road
opening out onto a large circular drive in front of the house itself. The
site still gives visitors today a clear impression of the original owner’s
ambition to create a grand, almost palatial, property in a striking set-
ting. Its extensive, carefully designed park, its series of spacious and
impressive rooms giving onto the park and the lake, its three terraces
stretching the length of the garden side, and its conservatory complete
with marble fountain were created to proclaim the success and refine-
ment of its owner, a wealthy businessman, in the second decade of the
twentieth century. The beautiful location contrasts starkly, however,
with the purpose of that meeting in 1942. The villa had been taken
over by the SS to provide accommodation for its guests, and the meet-
ing was called to discuss the ‘final solution to the Jewish question’. The
surviving minutes of the meeting record that the aim was to discuss
precisely who was to be targeted and how to deport a total of 11 mil-
lion people, subject them to extremely harsh forced labour, and kill
any who survived or were no longer capable of work by some other
method. The meeting was to conclude with breakfast.
* Translators’ note: the most senior civil servant in a ministry.