Wannsee Conference Discussion Group

Re: Wannsee Protocol Attracts Belated Attention in Germany

Erik Kirschbaum
Jan. 18, 2002

BERLIN (Reuters) - Sixty years ago, in the leafy Berlin lakeside district of Wannsee, a group of Nazi ministers were gathering for a breakfast meeting that had one purpose -- to organize the extermination of Europe's Jews.>>

In a session with no recorded dissent that lasted just 90 minutes, 15 state secretaries and high Nazi party officials co-ordinated plans to efficiently deport and eliminate some 11 million Jews from countries that Germany occupied or expected to conquer.
Only one of the 30 copies of the meeting's ``top secret'' notes, as recorded by Adolf Eichmann, survived the war. It was found by American war crimes investigators in a Foreign Ministry file in Berlin in 1947.
The ``Wannsee Protocol,'' as it came to be known, provided prosecutors at the Nuremberg war crimes trials with a ``smoking gun,'' a tangible piece of evidence linking the Nazi leadership to the ``Final Solution'' and the death camps where six million Jews perished.
The 60th anniversary on Sunday, Jan. 20, of the ``Wannsee Conference'' in a villa overlooking the Wannsee lake will be marked by a ceremony and discussion forums.
Germany's reaction to the conference epitomizes the country's struggle to come to terms with the darkest chapter of its history. Over the decades a post-war ambivalence about the Nazi era has given way to a desire for a deeper exploration of the past.
The gray three-story building where the Wannsee Conference took place was turned into a public memorial and education center 10 years ago after a long campaign. Since then, it has attracted half a million visitors.
``There has definitely been more interest in recent years in Germany in what happened at Wannsee as well as in the Nazi era,'' said Gaby Mueller-Oelrichs, head of the Josef Wulf Library at the Wannsee Conference Memorial and Educational Center.
``There's been a growing acceptance to learn about it,'' she added. ``Before the late 1960s, there was a tendency to sweep things under the carpet. Many teachers avoided the Nazi period. For a lot of people German history began in 1945, at the zero hour. That changed in the late 1960s and 1970s.''
BERLIN WANTED NO WANNSEE MEMORIAL
Reluctant to acknowledge that the holocaust was formally organized by the government, many Germans chose to pay little attention to the Wannsee Conference in earlier post-war decades.
The city of West Berlin itself long resisted efforts to establish a memorial at the building, a telling indication of the widespread indifference to the Nazi past.
The grand villa was owned by an industrialist and bought by Nazi Reinhard Heydrich as a vacation resort for the SS, Adolf Hitler's elite troops.
After the war it was inhabited by Soviet soldiers and then by American troops. In 1947 the Berlin Social Democratic Party took over, turning it into an adult education center. From 1952 until 1988 it was used as a school hostel for inner city children.
As late as 1967, West Berlin mayor Klaus Schuetz opposed efforts led by Auschwitz survivor Joseph Wulf and backed by the World Jewish Congress to turn it into a memorial, saying he didn't want to set up ``a macabre cult site.''
German student protests in 1968 triggered a wave of interest in the country's Nazi past as the post-war generation demanded to know more about their parents' crimes. A decade later, the television broadcast in West Germany of the American film ``Holocaust'' fired younger Germans' interest again.
``German historians were extremely slow in turning their attention to the (Nazi) era because many of them were compromised by their own past,'' the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper said in a recent article.
But since its opening 10 years ago on the 50th anniversary of the conference, the number of visitors to the documentation center has climbed steadily over the years, reaching nearly 67,000 in 2000.
CHILLING CONTRASTS
The visitors, including thousands of German school children each year, are confronted by chilling contrasts: a magnificent stately building on the banks of a beautiful lake where genocide was organized.
Inside, a turn-of-the-century splendor and impeccable orderliness clash with copies of the documents on the walls relating the decisions taken to implement the Holocaust.
Hosted by Heydrich, head of the Reich's security office, the meeting aimed to co-ordinate the ``Final Solution of the Jewish Question.'' Historians say Heydrich's objective was to include and brief important state ministries and party offices.
``There has never been a bleaker rendition of the orderly governance of murder,'' writes British historian Mark Roseman in a new book ``The Villa, The Lake, The Meeting: Wannsee and the Final Solution.'' ``To this day the Wannsee Protocol remains the most emblematic and programmatic statement of the Nazi way of doing genocide.''
Many Jews had been killed before January 1942 -- including half a million shot in the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 after the German army invaded the country. The first death camp, at Chelmno, was also operating before 1942.
But historians believe Wannsee was the moment where the Final Solution was formally organized. And although Hitler did not attend, most believe that the decisions were made at the Nazi leader's behest and knowledge.
``Wannsee emerges as an important act of closure in the process of turning mass murder into genocide,'' writes Roseman.
``On the face of it, it captures the moment when the Nazis decided to eliminate the Jews.'' He added that Hitler must ``at some point have taken the ultimate decision.''
In the protocol, Heydrich says Hitler gave him prior approval for a new kind of solution to the Jewish question, euphemistically called the ``evacuation'' of Jews to the east.
The notes describe that about 11 million Jews in Europe would be affected and include a table listing European countries and their Jewish populations. The protocol says that some half- and quarter-Jews would be allowed to stay in the Reich provided they accepted sterilization.
Historians say Heydrich revealed the regime's true intentions when describing the Jews deemed fit for work.
``In the course of the final solution ... the Jews should be put to work in the east,'' the document says.
``Jews fit to work will work their way eastwards constructing roads. Doubtless the majority will be eliminated by natural causes. Any final remnants that survive will consist of the most resistant elements. They will have to be dealt with appropriately because otherwise, by natural selection, they would form the germ cell of a new Jewish revival.''
Aside from the one 15-page copy of the minutes found in 1947, historians have the testimony of Eichmann at his trial in Israel in 1961 before he was convicted and executed.
Eichmann said the meeting was ``conducted quietly and with much courtesy, with much friendliness. There was not much speaking and it did not last a long time. The waiters served cognac, and in this way it ended.''

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Michael Mills
Jan. 19, 2002

This is a common misperception of the purpose of the conference of State Secretaries that after the war was dubbed "Wannsee Conference". In fact, no organisation of extermination took place at the conference, nor was any decision on extermination made.

Heydrich called together senior officials of various German ministries to inform them that Goering had appointed him as the plenipotentiary for the solution of the Jewish Problem, and to gain their recognition that in all matters to do with the solution of the Jewish Problem their agencies were to co-operate with his organisation, the RSHA. Goering's letter of 31 July 1941, giving Heydrich plenipotentiary powers on this matter, had been circulated to the invitees together with their invitations.

The reason for the conference was that Heydrich feared that the various German ministries would not recognise his supreme authority in this area, and would continue with their own Jewish policies, which many of were already implementing. Eichmann described in his post-war statements hos relieved Heydrich was when the powerful men from the ministries uniformly recognised Heydrich's authority.

In the course of the meeting, Heydrich revealed to the participants the plan that he had developed to implement the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem under the authority given him by Goering. This was to deport all the Jews of Europe into the Occupied Eastern Territories (ie the occupied Soviet Union), where they would be used for forced labour. Heydrich stated that it was expected that there would be a high attrition rate, and that those left (presumably meaning those left once final victory in the East had been achieved) would need to be "treated appropriately". Whether the latter statement was an approved decision or a policy suggestion by Heydrich is unclear; the fact that he gave a justification for the "appropriate treatment" (that the survivors would represent the germ cell of a new Jewish development, according to the lesson of history) suggests the latter. Heydrich also stated that Hitler had approved the underlying basis of the plan, namely deportation into the Occupied Eastern Territories rather than forced emigration.

The only matter up for discussion at the conference was the treatment of the "Mischlinge", ie whether they would be treated as Jews and deported, or given different treatment. In the end, largely due to the position taken by Stuckart of the Interior Ministry, it was decided that the Mischlinge would not be treated as Jews, and would remain in Germany but be subject to sterilisation.

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Re: Wannsee Protocol Attracts Belated Attention in Germany
Medorjurgen 1168
Jan. 19, 2002

<<In the course of the meeting, Heydrich revealed to the participants the plan that he had developed to implement the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem under the authority given him by Goering. This was to deport all the Jews of Europe into the Occupied Eastern Territories (ie the occupied Soviet Union), where they would be used for forced labour. Heydrich stated that it was expected that there would be a high attrition rate, and that those left (presumably meaning those left once final victory in the East had been achieved) would need to be "treated appropriately". Whether the latter statement was an approved decision or a policy suggestion by Heydrich is unclear; the fact that he gave a justification for the "appropriate treatment" (that the survivors would represent the germ cell of a new Jewish development, according to the lesson of history) suggests the latter. Heydrich also stated that Hitler had approved the underlying basis of the plan, namely deportation into the Occupied Eastern Territories rather than forced emigration.>>

It is worth while to have a look at the wording of the passages of the Wannsee Conference protocol alluded to.
Original German text:

Unter entsprechender Leitung sollen im Zuge der Endl��sung die Juden in geeigneter Weise im Osten zum Arbeitseinsatz kommen. In gro��en Arbeitskolonnen, unter Trennung der Geschlechter, werden die arbeitsf��higen Juden stra��enbauend in diese Gebiete gef��hrt, wobei zweifellos ein Gro��teil durch nat��rliche Verminderung ausfallen wird.

Der allf��llig endlich verbleibende Restbestand wird, da es sich bei diesem zweifellos um den widerstandsf��higsten Teil handelt, entsprechend behandelt werden m��ssen, da dieser, eine nat��rliche Auslese darstellend, bei Freilassung als Keimzelle eines neuen j��dischen Aufbaues anzusprechen ist. (Siehe die Erfahrung der Geschichte.)

Source of quote:

library.byu.edu/~rdh/euro...ngerm.html

English translation:

"Under proper guidance, in the course of the final solution the Jews are to be allocated for appropriate labor in the East. Able-bodied Jews, separated according to sex, will be taken in large work columns to these areas for work on roads, in the course of which action doubtless a large portion will be eliminated by natural causes.

The possible final remnant will, since it will undoubtedly consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly, because it is the product of natural selection and would, if released, act as a the seed of a new Jewish revival (see the experience of history.)"

Source:

library.byu.edu/~rdh/euro...nneng.html

The most interesting feature of these passages is that the procedure described refers only to "able-bodied" Jews, such that could be put to work. Jews who could not be used for slave labor were not even mentioned. Yet if even the "useful" Jews were to be done away with by "natural causes" or by being "treated accordingly", the omission makes it quite clear what was to occur to the others.

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Re: Wannsee Protocol Attracts Belated Attention in Germany

Michael Mills
Jan.20, 2002

The point of view I have presented is one held by a number of historians, including Yehuda Bauer, who has warned against misinterpreting the Wannsee Conference as the point at which the Final Solution was decided. Bauer did so in a number of newspaper and journal articles.

My interpretation also rises from the conference minutes themselves. They show Heydrich presenting to the assembled State Secretaries his authority as executor of the Final Solution. They show him expounding the deportation and attrition plan that he has devised and that has been approved by the Fuehrer. They record a discussion and decision on the "Mischlinge". But they do not record any discussion of a proposed plan and a decision on it. All the State Secretaries were required to do was to formally accept Heydrich's plenipotentiary powers in relation to Jewish policy, which they did.

My interpretation is also consistent with Eichmann;s memoirs, which describe the expectation that the State Secretaries would refuse to recognise Heydrich's authority, and the relief when they did. It is also consistent with post-war statements by participants such as Stuckart, who denied that pysical extermination of the deported Jews had even been mentioned, although of course he had a vested interest in saying that.

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Re: Wannsee Protocol Attracts Belated Attention in Germany

Max Heiliger
Jan. 21, 2002

"The meeting was closed with the request of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD[*] to the participants that they afford him appropriate support during the carrying out of the tasks involved in the solution."
Wannsee Protocol - last paragraph
*[Heydrich]

Michael
Was this how Heydrich asked for/demanded recognition of the powers bestowed on him by Goering or was there some other [unrecorded] appeals/demands for support?
Obviously no vote was take.
Was there any dissent?
Who might have opposed him? [had ideological or practical differences]
Who could have opposed him?[had the power]
I guess he had it all worked out and must have been a very persuasive talker.
Max

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Re: Wannsee Protocol Attracts Belated Attention in Germany

Michael Mills
Jan. 21, 2002

The minutes suggest that there was no opposition by the conference participants to Heydrich's assumption of plenipotentiary powers. But the minutes were produced by Heydrich, and he may have slanted them to reflect the outcome he wanted, a common tactic in minute-writing.

Eichmann's memory of the meeting, as described in his interviews by Sassen, was that it was a success, and that Heydrich and Mueller considered they had won a victory over the ministries.

The subsequent course of events shows that the implementation of the Final Solution was left largely to the SS.