Never Forget
The Wannsee Conference
The Meet of Monsters
Die Wannseekonferenz (conference at Wannsee) took place January 20, 1942. 80 years ago this month. Its significance? The evil inside humans knows no bounds. Seriously. Evil is a bottomless pit. You think you’ve seen or heard of all? No. Humans, in pursuit of power, have no qualms being covered in dreck.
The objective of this meeting, organized by super-stoked Nazi Reinhard Heydrich, Chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), was to prepare and submit a plan for a “total solution of the Jewish question” in territories under German control and to coordinate the participation of all involved government organizations.
So basically, these Nazis came together to discuss the details of exterminating 11 million Jewish people throughout Europe. It wasn’t a meet that sealed the fate of European Jews — because that fate had been sealed long ago since Hitler came into power in 1933, with deportation and mass executions already in progress, as we know or as everyone should know — no, this meet was to make sure everyone was on board making everyone complicit. Spread the guilt to everyone and to no one.
The meet was to ensure the co-operation of administrative leaders of various government departments in the implementation of the Final Solution to the Jewish question
It’s hard to choose who among these people was most monstrous — it was a collective of depravity and evil. Really, to me, unimaginable and I find it hard to think about. But think about it we must.
The meeting minutes or Wannsee Protocol was written by chief organizer of the Holocaust, Adolf Eichmann. His job description: facilitating and managing the logistics of mass deportation and mass extermination.
For the conference, Eichmann made sure the language used for the protocol, was unimaginative office language and not the frank terminology actually expressed during the conference. Keep it bland and innocuous.
One, however, could not oversee the clear wording: evacuation east was code for death.
There are many details to read up on if you can stomach it: Eichmann and the Wannsee Conference.