Grosser Wansee 56/58 on January 20th, 1942

Wansee conference - origin, conduct and conclusions

How idea of german death camps emerged

Names, places, meaning of statements below are real, verified historical facts. (link). However arrangement of speeches and statements is not original. Comments are expressed to my best knowledge and information obtained and verified.

True story. Real numbers.

Wansee

date: 1942 January 20th

place: Grosser Wansee 56/58, Berlin, Germany 

purpose: final solution to Jewish question

chairman/originator: Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich 

attendees (15 persons): see attached table (Appendix 2)

Statements of fact (origin and conduct)

Heydrich (speech):

Despite our efforts that include: 

• massive killings by 3000 members of Himmler's Einstzgruppen
• mobile gas chambers ordered in Gaubschat Fahrzeugwerke GmbH, but not yet delivered
• support for "pogroms" in occupied territories i.e. using local criminals and similar characters for spontaneous killings of Jews
• ongoing deportations to concentration camps
• first extermination camp (Belzec) under construction, new camps are at planned stage
• ongoing process of consolidation of remaining free Jews in numerous ghettos 

There are still too many Jews and Slavs in occupied territories, with particular extent in General Government (former Poland), therefore we have to undertake more effective solutions.

Our estimates (calculation by SS-Obersturmbannführer Eichmann) are about 11 millions of unwanted Jews, all of them will be subject of procedure called "evecuation east". (Eichmann list can be found as Appendix 1). Our Gaulaiters complaining that repatriated Germans are not receiving appropiate housing and equipment that is very slowly recovered from expellees. "Evacuation" must be run at full speed and efficiency.

The plan is that we need inter-department cooperation at full scale. That is why you are here. We expect understanding and cooperation from all departments you represent.

Hoffman:

There will be legalistic and administrative difficulties problems over mixed marriages and I suggest complete dissolution of such or sterilization. (this idea was aborted due to low eficiency)

Neumann:

Jews working in key warfare industry have to be excluded from that plan. (Haydrich answered: that is already done)

Bühler:

I hope we will commence ASAP.

Heydrich (discussion, ordered to serve cognac, less formal statements were made with open interpretation of statement "evacuation"):

I'm glad that we have reached agreement, I had expected much more resistance from you and I'm nice surprised of full understanding and willing cooperation you have shown. Ways of massive extermination, liquidation, effective killing and recovering jewish properties can be disscussed now in small groups.

(about half an hour discussion follows, mainly about efficiency and administrative problems that could arise, then officials left keeping in mind good job has been done for Reich)

Conclusion

The way to massive extermination with full scale industrial support was opened. Confirmed cooperation with all engaged departments i.e.:

1. Schutzstaffel (SS)
2. Reich Main Security Office (RSHA)
3. Nazi Party
4. Gestapo
5. Ministry for Occupied Eastern Territories
6. General Government
7. Ministry of Justice
8. Interior Ministry
9. Office of plenipotentiary for the 4 year plan
10. Reich Chancellery
11. Foreign Ministry

From that time on, Reich, on above agreement, with full engagement design, built and run until 1945 three extermination camps (Sobibor, Treblinka, Belzec) while another three were already working in Auschwitz, Majdanek and Chelmno. That was government run and controlled business including:

• control, maintenance and distribution of forced-labour workers
• control and accounting of stolen goods including value laundering by German National Bank
• atempts to make commercial profits using human remainings as a fertilizer or component for soap production
• pseudomedical experiments conducted on prisoners

As a result of Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich idea, described above more than 6 millions people found their death in extermination camps. System efficiency reached average more than 20 thousands people registered, killed and their property accounted daily.  

Heydrich has never seen all lethal effects of his German government run industrial genocide, he was assasinated 5 months later, in May 1942 in Prague by Jan Kubis and Jozef Gabcik.

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Appendixes

Appendix 1 (Eichmann list):

Appendix 2 (attendees and their final position):

name	positions	department	final status
SS-Gruppenführer Otto Hofmann	Head of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office (RuSHA)	Schutzstaffel (SS)	died as a clerk in Bad Mergentheim on December 31st 1982
SS-Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller	Chief of Amt IV (Gestapo)	Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), Schutzstaffel	unknown, reported spotted by Peter Malkin in Brasil in 1950
SS-Oberführer Dr. Karl Eberhard Schöngarth	Commander of the SiPo and the SD in the General Government (Ex-Poland Territory)	SiPo and SD, RSHA, Schutzstaffel	hanged in 1946 at Hameln Prison
SS-Oberführer Dr. Gerhard Klopfer	Permanent Secretary	Nazi Party Chancellery	died in 1987 as a lawyer in Ulm
SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann	Head of Referat IV B4 of the Gestapo	Gestapo, RSHA, Schutzstaffel	hanged in 1962 in Ramla Prison
SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Rudolf Lange	Head of Einsatzkommando 2	SiPo and SD, RSHA, Schutzstaffel	unknown (last seen in 1945 in Posen)
Dr. Georg Leibbrandt	Reichsamtleiter (Reich Head Office)	Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories	died in Bonn on June 16th 1982
Dr. Alfred Meyer	Gauleiter	Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories	found dead in January 1945 (suicide)
Dr. Josef Bühler	State Secretary	General Government (Ex-Poland Territory Occupation Authority)	hanged in July 1948 at Montelupich Prison
Dr. Roland Freisler	State Secretary	Reich Ministry of Justice	died from airdropped bomb in February 1945 in Berlin
SS-Brigadeführer Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart	State Secretary	Reich Interior Ministry	killed in car accident in 1953
SS-Oberführer Erich Neumann	State Secretary	Office of the Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan	died in Garmisch-Partenkirchien in March 1951
Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger	Permanent Secretary	Reich Chancellery	died in Nuremberg in 1947
Martin Luther	Under-Secretary	Reich Foreign Ministry	died in 1945 (heart failure)