Wannsee Conference The Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior officials of Nazi Germany , held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942 . The purpose of the conference , called by director of the " SS - Reichssicherheitshauptamt " ( Reich Main Security Office ; RSHA ) SS - " Obergruppenführer " Reinhard Heydrich , was to ensure the cooperation of administrative leaders of various government departments in the implementation of the final solution to the Jewish question , whereby most of the Jews of German - occupied Europe would be deported to Poland and exterminated . Conference attendees included representatives from several government ministries , including state secretaries from the Foreign Office , the justice , interior , and state ministries , and representatives from the " Schutzstaffel " ( SS ) . In the course of the meeting , Heydrich outlined how European Jews would be rounded up from west to east and sent to extermination camp s in the General Government ( the occupied part of Poland ) , where they would be killed . Legalized discrimination against Jews began immediately after the Nazi seizure of power on 30 January 1933 . Violence and economic pressure were used by the Nazi regime to encourage Jews to voluntarily leave the country . After the invasion of Poland in September 1939 , the extermination of European Jewry began , and the killings continued and accelerated after the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 . On 31 July 1941 Hermann Göring gave written authorization to Heydrich 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 organisations . At the Wannsee Conference , Heydrich emphasised that once the deportation process was complete , the exterminations would become an internal matter under the purview of the SS . A secondary goal was to arrive at a definition of who was Jewish and thus determine the scope of the exterminations . One copy of the Wannsee Protocol , the circulated minutes of the meeting , survived the war to be found by Robert Kempner , lead U . S . prosecutor before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg , in files that had been seized from the German Foreign Office . The Wannsee House , site of the conference , is now a Holocaust Memorial . Background . The ideology of Nazism brought together elements of antisemitism , racial hygiene , and eugenics , and combined them with pan - Germanism and territorial expansionism with the goal of obtaining more " Lebensraum " ( living space ) for the Germanic people . Nazi Germany attempted to obtain this new territory by attacking Poland and the Soviet Union , intending to deport or kill the Jews and Slavs living there , who were viewed as being inferior to the Aryan master race . Discrimination against Jews , longstanding but extralegal throughout much of Europe at the time , was codified in Germany immediately after the Nazi seizure of power on 30 January 1933 . The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service , passed on 7 April of that year , excluded most Jews from the legal profession and the civil service . Similar legislation soon deprived Jewish members of other professions of the right to practise . Violence and economic pressure were used by the regime to encourage Jews to voluntarily leave the country . Jewish businesses were denied access to markets , forbidden to advertise in newspapers , and deprived of access to government contracts . Citizens were harassed and subjected to violent attacks and boycotts of their businesses . In September 1935 the Nuremberg Laws were enacted . These laws prohibited marriages between Jews and people of Germanic extraction , extramarital relations between Jews and Germans , and the employment of German women under the age of 45 as domestic servants in Jewish households . The Reich Citizenship Law stated that only those of Germanic or related blood were defined as citizens . Thus Jews and other minority groups were stripped of their German citizenship . A supplementary decree issued in November defined as Jewish anyone with three Jewish grandparents , or two grandparents if the Jewish faith was followed . By the start of World War II in 1939 , around 250 , 000 of Germany ' s 437 , 000 Jews emigrated to the United States , Palestine , Great Britain , and other countries . After the invasion of Poland in September 1939 , Hitler ordered that the Polish leadership and intelligentsia should be destroyed . The " Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen " ( Special Prosecution Book Poland ) — lists of people to be killed — had been drawn up by the SS as early as May 1939 . The " Einsatzgruppen " ( special task forces ) performed these murders with the support of the " Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz " ( Germanic Self - Protection Group ) , a paramilitary group consisting of ethnic Germans living in Poland . Members of the SS , the Wehrmacht ( German Armed Forces ) , and the " Ordnungspolizei " ( Order Police ; Orpo ) also shot civilians during the Polish campaign . Approximately 65 , 000 civilians were killed by the end of 1939 . In addition to leaders of Polish society , they killed Jews , prostitutes , Romani people , and the mentally ill . On 31 July 1941 Hermann Göring gave written authorization to SS - " Obergruppenführer " ( Senior Group Leader ) Reinhard Heydrich , Chief of the Reich Main Security Office ( RSHA ) , 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 organisations . The resulting " Generalplan Ost " ( General Plan for the East ) called for deporting the population of occupied Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to Siberia , for use as slave labour or to be murdered . The minutes of the Wannsee Conference estimated the Jewish population of the Soviet Union to be five million , with another three million in Ukraine . In addition to eliminating Jews , the Nazis also planned to reduce the population of the conquered territories by 30 million people through starvation in an action called the Hunger Plan . Food supplies would be diverted to the German army and German civilians . Cities would be razed and the land allowed to return to forest or resettled by German colonists . Harvests were poor in Germany in 1940 and 1941 and food supplies were short , as large numbers of forced labourers had been brought into the country to work in the armaments industry . If these workers — as well as the German people — were to be adequately fed , there must be a sharp reduction in the number of " useless mouths " , of whom the millions of Jews under German rule were , in the light of Nazi ideology , the most obvious example . At the time of the Wannsee Conference , the killing of Jews in the Soviet Union had already been underway for some months . Right from the start of Operation Barbarossa — the invasion of the Soviet Union — " Einsatzgruppen " were assigned to follow the army into the conquered areas and round up and kill Jews . In a letter dated 2 July 1941 Heydrich communicated to his SS and Police Leaders that the " Einsatzgruppen " were to execute Comintern officials , ranking members of the Communist Party , extremist and radical Communist Party members , people ' s commissar s , and Jews in party and government posts . Open - ended instructions were given to execute " other radical elements ( saboteurs , propagandists , snipers , assassins , agitators , etc . ) . " He instructed that any pogroms spontaneously initiated by the occupants of the conquered territories were to be quietly encouraged . On 8 July , he announced that all Jews were to be regarded as partisans , and gave the order for all male Jews between the ages of 15 and 45 to be shot . By August the net had been widened to include women , children , and the elderly — the entire Jewish population . By the time planning was underway for the Wannsee Conference , hundreds of thousands of Polish , Serbian , and Russian Jews had already been killed . The initial plan was to implement " Generalplan Ost " after the conquest of the Soviet Union . European Jews would be deported to occupied parts of Russia , where they would be worked to death in road - building projects . Planning the conference . On 29 November , Heydrich sent invitations for a ministerial conference to be held on 9 December at the offices of Interpol at 16 " Am Kleinen " Wannsee . He changed the venue on 4 December to the eventual location of the meeting . He enclosed a copy of a letter from Göring dated 31 July that authorised him to plan a Final Solution to the Jewish question . The ministries to be represented were Interior , Justice , the Four Year Plan , Propaganda , and the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories . Between the date the invitations to the conference went out ( 29 November ) and the date of the cancelled first meeting ( 9 December ) , the situation changed . On 5 December , the Soviet Army began a counter - offensive in front of Moscow , ending the prospect of a rapid conquest of the Soviet Union . On 7 December , the Japanese attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor , causing the U . S . to declare war on Japan the next day . To fulfil its obligations under its Tripartite Pact with Italy and Japan , the Reich government declared war on the U . S . on 11 December . Some invitees were involved in these preparations , so Heydrich postponed his meeting . Somewhere around this time , Hitler resolved that the Jews of Europe were to be exterminated immediately , rather than after the war , which now had no end in sight . On 12 December he met with top party officials and made his intentions plain . The war was still ongoing , and since transporting masses of people into a combat zone was impossible , Heydrich decided that the Jews currently living in the General Government ( the German - occupied area of Poland ) would be killed in extermination camp s set up in occupied areas of Poland , as would Jews from the rest of Europe . On 8 January 1942 , Heydrich sent new invitations to a meeting to be held on 20 January . The venue for the rescheduled conference was a villa at 56 – 58 Am Großen Wannsee , overlooking the Großer Wannsee . The villa had been purchased from Friedrich Minoux in 1940 by the " Sicherheitsdienst " ( Security Force ; SD ) for use as a conference centre and guest house . Attendees . Heydrich invited representatives from several government ministries , including state secretaries from the Foreign Office , the justice , interior , and state ministries , and representatives from the SS . The process of disseminating information about the fate of the Jews was already well underway by the time the meeting was held . Proceedings . In preparation for the conference , Eichmann drafted a list of the numbers of Jews in the various European countries . Countries were listed in two groups , " A " and " B " . " A " countries were those under direct Reich control or occupation ( or partially occupied and quiescent , in the case of Vichy France ) ; " B " countries were allied or client states , neutral , or at war with Germany . The numbers reflect actions already completed by Nazi forces ; for example , Estonia is listed as " Judenfrei " ( free of Jews ) , since the 4 , 500 Jews who remained in Estonia after the German occupation had been exterminated by the end of 1941 . Heydrich opened the conference with an account of the anti - Jewish measures taken in Germany since the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 . He said that between 1933 and October 1941 , 537 , 000 German , Austrian , and Czech Jews had emigrated . This information was taken from a briefing paper prepared for him the previous week by Eichmann . Heydrich reported that there were approximately eleven million Jews in the whole of Europe , of whom half were in countries not under German control . He explained that since further Jewish emigration had been prohibited by Himmler , a new solution would take its place : " evacuating " Jews to the east . This would be a temporary solution , a step towards the final solution of the Jewish question . German historian Peter Longerich notes that vague orders couched in terminology that had a specific meaning for members of the regime were common , especially when people were being ordered to carry out criminal activities . Leaders were given briefings about the need to be " severe " and " firm " ; all Jews were to be viewed as potential enemies that had to be dealt with ruthlessly . The wording of the Wannsee Protocol — the distributed minutes of the meeting — made it clear to participants that evacuation east was a euphemism for death . Heydrich went on to say that in the course of the " practical execution of the final solution " , Europe would be " combed through from west to east " but that Germany , Austria , and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia would have priority " due to the housing problem and additional social and political necessities " . This was a reference to increasing pressure from the Gauleiter s ( regional Nazi Party leaders ) in Germany for the Jews to be removed from their areas to allow accommodation for Germans made homeless by Allied bombing , as well as to make space for laborers being imported from occupied countries . The " evacuated " Jews , he said , would first be sent to " transit ghettos " in the General Government , from which they would be transported eastward . Heydrich said that to avoid legal and political difficulties , it was important to define who was a Jew for the purposes of " evacuation " . He outlined categories of people who would not be killed . Jews over 65 years old , and Jewish World War I veterans who had been severely wounded or who had won the Iron Cross , might be sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp instead of being killed . " With this expedient solution , " he said , " in one fell swoop many interventions will be prevented . " The situation of people who were half or quarter Jews , and of Jews who were married to non - Jews , was more complex . Under the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 , their status had been left deliberately ambiguous . Heydrich announced that " Mischling s " ( a Nazi pejorative for mixed - race persons ) of the first degree ( persons with two Jewish grandparents ) would be treated as Jews . This would not apply if they were married to a non - Jew and had children by that marriage . It would also not apply if they had been granted written exemption by " the highest offices of the Party and State . " Such persons would be sterilised or deported if they refused sterilisation . " " Mischlings " of the second degree " ( persons with one Jewish grandparent ) would be treated as Germans unless they were married to Jews or " Mischlings " of the first degree , had a " racially especially undesirable appearance that marks him outwardly as a Jew " , or had a " political record that shows that he feels and behaves like a Jew " . Persons in these latter categories would be killed even if married to non - Jews . In the case of mixed marriages , Heydrich recommended that each case should be evaluated individually and the impact on any German relatives assessed . If such a marriage had produced children who were being raised as Germans , the Jewish partner would not be killed . If they were being raised as Jews , they might be killed or sent to an old - age ghetto . These exemptions applied only to German and Austrian Jews , and were not always observed even for them . In most of the occupied countries , Jews were rounded up and killed " en masse " , and anyone who lived in or identified with the Jewish community in any given place was regarded as a Jew . Heydrich commented , " In occupied and unoccupied France , the registration of Jews for evacuation will in all probability proceed without great difficulty " , but in the end the great majority of French - born Jews survived . More difficulty was anticipated with Germany ' s allies Romania and Hungary . " In Romania the government has [ now ] appointed a commissioner for Jewish affairs " , Heydrich said . In fact the deportation of Romanian Jews was slow and inefficient despite a high degree of popular antisemitism . " In order to settle the question in Hungary , " Heydrich said , " it will soon be necessary to force an adviser for Jewish questions onto the Hungarian government " . The Hungarian regime of Miklós Horthy continued to resist German interference in its Jewish policy until the spring of 1944 , when the Wehrmacht invaded Hungary . Very soon , 600 , 000 Jews of Hungary ( and parts of Czechoslovakia , Romania , and Yugoslavia occupied by Hungary ) were sent to their deaths by Eichmann , with the collaboration of Hungarian authorities . Heydrich spoke for nearly an hour . Then followed about thirty minutes of questions and comments , followed by some less formal conversation . Otto Hofmann ( head of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office ( RuSHA ) ) and Wilhelm Stuckart ( State Secretary of the Reich Interior Ministry ) pointed out the legalistic and administrative difficulties over mixed marriages , and suggested compulsory dissolution of mixed marriages or the wider use of sterilisation as a simpler alternative . Erich Neumann from the Four Year Plan argued for the exemption of Jews who were working in industries vital to the war effort and for whom no replacements were available . Heydrich assured him that this was already the policy ; such Jews would not be killed . Josef Bühler , State Secretary of the General Government , stated his support for the plan and his hope that the killings would commence as soon as possible . Towards the end of the meeting cognac was served , and that after that the conversation became less restrained . " The gentlemen were standing together , or sitting together " , Eichmann said , " and were discussing the subject quite bluntly , quite differently from the language which I had to use later in the record . During the conversation they minced no words about it at all . . . they spoke about methods of killing , about liquidation , about extermination " . Eichmann recorded that Heydrich was pleased with the course of the meeting . He had expected a lot of resistance , Eichmann recalled , but instead he had found " an atmosphere not only of agreement on the part of the participants , but more than that , one could feel an agreement which had assumed a form which had not been expected " . Wannsee Protocol . At the conclusion of the meeting Heydrich gave Eichmann firm instructions about what was to appear in the minutes . They were not to be verbatim : Eichmann ensured that nothing too explicit appeared in them . He said at his trial : " How shall I put it — certain over - plain talk and jargon expressions had to be rendered into office language by me " . Eichmann condensed his records into a document outlining the purpose of the meeting and the intentions of the regime moving forward . He stated at his trial that it was personally edited by Heydrich , and thus reflected the message he intended the participants to take away from the meeting . Copies of the minutes ( known from the German word for " minutes " as the " Wannsee Protocol " ) were sent by Eichmann to all the participants after the meeting . Most of these copies were destroyed at the end of the war as participants and other officials sought to cover their tracks . It was not until 1947 that Luther ' s copy ( number 16 out of 30 copies prepared ) was found by Robert Kempner , lead U . S . prosecutor before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg , in files that had been seized from the German Foreign Office . Interpretation . The Wannsee Conference lasted only about ninety minutes . The enormous importance which has been attached to the conference by postwar writers was not evident to most of its participants at the time . Heydrich did not call the meeting to make fundamental new decisions on the Jewish question . Massive killings of Jews in the conquered territories in the Soviet Union and Poland were ongoing and a new extermination camp was already under construction at Belzec at the time of the conference ; other extermination camps were in the planning stages . The decision to exterminate the Jews had already been made , and Heydrich , as Himmler ' s emissary , held the meeting to ensure the cooperation of the various departments in conducting the deportations . According to Longerich , a primary goal of the meeting was to emphasise that once the deportations had been completed , the implementation of the Final Solution became an internal matter of the SS , totally outside the purview of any other agency . A secondary goal was to determine the scope of the deportations and arrive at definitions of who was Jewish , who was " Mischling " , and who ( if anybody ) should be spared . " The representatives of the ministerial bureaucracy had made it plain that they had no concerns about the principle of deportation per se . This was indeed the crucial result of the meeting and the main reason why Heydrich had detailed minutes prepared and widely circulated " , said Longerich . Their presence at the meeting also ensured that all those present were accomplices and accessories to the murders that were about to be undertaken . Eichmann ' s biographer David Cesarani agrees with Longerich ' s interpretation ; he notes that Heydrich ' s main purpose was to impose his own authority on the various ministries and agencies involved in Jewish policy matters , and to avoid any repetition of the disputes that had arisen earlier in the annihilation campaign . " The simplest , most decisive way that Heydrich could ensure the smooth flow of deportations " , he writes , " was by asserting his total control over the fate of the Jews in the Reich and the east , and [ by ] cow [ ing ] other interested parties into toeing the line of the RSHA " . Wannsee House Holocaust Memorial . In 1965 , historian Joseph Wulf proposed that the Wannsee House should be made into a Holocaust memorial and document centre . But the German government was not interested at that time . The building was in use as a school , and funding was not available . Despondent at the failure of the project and the German government ' s failure to pursue and convict Nazi war criminals , Wulf committed suicide in 1974 . On 20 January 1992 , on the fiftieth anniversary of the conference , the site was finally opened as a Holocaust memorial and museum . The museum also hosts permanent exhibits of texts and photographs that document events of the Holocaust and its planning . The Joseph Wulf Bibliothek / Mediothek on the second floor houses a large collection of books on the Nazi era , plus other materials such as microfilms and original Nazi documents .