January – Wansee Conference

By Amy Fedeski (FSWC Educator)

On January 20, 1942, senior Nazi officials met at a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to coordinate what they called the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question." This meeting, now known as the Wannsee Conference, formalized the Nazis’ plans to systematically murder the entire Jewish population of Europe. Though genocide had already begun through mass shootings by mobile killing units (the Einsatzgruppen), the Wannsee Conference marked a shift toward coordinated, industrialized extermination. At the meeting, chaired by SS leader Reinhard Heydrich, representatives from various Nazi ministries organized the logistics of mass murder, identifying the Jewish population of each country and methodically planning their arrest, deportation and murder. The Wannsee Protocol, the minutes of the conference discussions, used euphemistic language to describe the intended outcome of the meeting: namely, the genocide of some 11 million Jewish people across Europe. The Wannsee conference illustrates the systematic and industrial nature of the Holocaust, reflecting how state bureaucracy was deliberately employed by the Nazis in their pursuit of the annihilation of European Jewry.

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