On
this date, January 20, 1942, at the Wannsee Conference held in the Berlin
suburb of Wannsee, senior Nazi German officials discuss the implementation of
the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". I will post information
about this historical event on the Holocaust from Wikipedia and other links.
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The 15 Attendees of
the Wannsee Conference
[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.deathcamps.org/reinhard/wannsee/att.html]
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Manor in
Berlin-Wannsee, Germany - also known as the House of the Wannsee Conference
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The
Wannsee Conference (German: Wannseekonferenz) 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 murdered. 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 camps
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. The objective of the Hunger Plan was
to inflict deliberate mass starvation on the Slavic civilian populations under German
occupation by directing all food supplies to the German home population and the
Wehrmacht on the Eastern
Front. According to the historian Timothy Snyder, "4.2 million Soviet
citizens (largely Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians) were starved" by
the Nazis (and the Nazi controlled Wehrmacht) in 1941–1944 as a result of
Backe's plan.
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 commissars,
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.
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Letter from Heydrich
to Martin Luther, Undersecretary at the
Foreign Office, inviting him to the Wannsee Conference (Wannsee Conference
House Memorial, Berlin)
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Planning
the conference
On
29 November 1941, 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. 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.[a] At the Reich
Chancellery meeting of 12 December 1941 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 camps 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.
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Eichmann’s lists
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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.
List
of attendees
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.[b]
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.[b]
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.
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 the seed of a new Jewish revival.
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 Gauleiters (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 Mischlings (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. [c]
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.[d] 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.[59] Towards the end of the meeting cognac was served, and 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".
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July 1941 letter from
Göring to Heydrich concerning the "final solution" of the Jewish
question
Content/Inhalt:
German:
English: In addition to the task
you received with the order of January 24 1939 to solve the Jewish question of
emigration or evacuation in a manner feasible according to the current
circumstances, I hereby command you to make all necessary organizational,
functional, and material preparations for a complete solution of the Jewish
Question in the German sphere of influence in Europe.
In case this affects the responsibilities of other central organisations,
these shall participate as well.
I further instruct you to submit to me in the near future with an
overall concept of the organizational, factual and material measures to carry
out the desired final solution of the Jewish question
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In a February 26, 1942 letter to Martin
Luther (diplomat), Reinhard Heydrich
follows up on the Wannsee Conference
by asking Luther for administrative assistance in the implementation of the
"Endlösung der Judenfrage" (Final Solution of the Jewish Question).
A transcription of the
letter's text is available from the House of the Wannsee Conference at http://www.ghwk.de/engl/february-26-1942.htm
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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"[e]) 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.
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The
conference room at the Wannsee Conference House, 2006
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Facsimiles of the
minutes of the Wannsee Conference and Eichmann's list, presented under glass at
the Wannsee Conference House Memorial
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View of the Großer
Wannsee lake from the villa at 56–58 Am Grossen Wannsee, where the conference
was held
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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".
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Reinhard
Heydrich (August 28, 1940)
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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 West 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 West 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.
See
also
- Conspiracy (film)
- The Wannsee Conference (film)
Notes
1.
German historian Christian
Gerlach has claimed that Hitler approved the policy of extermination in a
speech to senior officials in Berlin on 12 December. Gerlach
1998, p. 785. This date is not universally accepted, but it seems
likely that a decision was made at around this time. On December 18, Himmler
met with Hitler and noted in his appointment book "Jewish question – to be
exterminated as partisans". Browning
2004, p. 410. On 19 December, Wilhelm Stuckert, State Secretary at the
Interior Ministry, told one of his officials: "The proceedings against the
evacuated Jews are based on a decision from the highest authority. You must
come to terms with it." Browning
2004, p. 405.
This information was contained in the briefing paper
Eichmann prepared for Heydrich before the meeting. Cesarani
2005, p. 112.
At a meeting of 17 ministerial representatives held at the
Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories on 29 January, it decided that in
the eastern territories all Mischlings were to be classed as Jews, while
in western Europe the relatively more lenient German standard would be applied.
Browning
2004, p. 414.
Göring and his subordinates made persistent efforts to
prevent skilled Jewish workers whose labour was an important part of the war
effort from being killed. But by 1943 Himmler was a much more powerful figure
in the regime than Göring, and all categories of skilled Jews eventually lost
their exemptions. Tooze
2006, pp. 522–529.
The minutes are headed Besprechungsprotokoll
(discussion minutes).
INTERNET
SOURCE: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wannsee_Protocol
Wannsee
Protocol ,
translated by U. S. Government
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The Wannsee Protocol was the
record of the Nazi Wannsee conference, in which the Final Solution, or the
slaughter of the Jews of Europe, was planned. The "Wannsee
Conference" was not a name its participants would have given to their
meeting; it is simply the most convenient description available for
historians of the Holocaust. At a villa owned by the SS on the shores of a
suburban Berlin lake called the Wannsee, mid-level bureaucrats from a number
of Nazi agencies, all named in the introduction to the text, assembled at the
request of Reinhard Heydrich, the chief of the Reich Security Main Office and
head of the German secret police apparatus. Heydrich and his boss, Heinrich
Himmler, head of the SS, were in the process of assuming leadership in the
"Final Solution of the Jewish Question," i.e., the murder of
Europe's Jews by the Nazis. This meeting was a part of that process, as bureaucratic
coordination would be required for the massive efforts to be undertaken
throughout Europe to kill the 11,000,000 Jews described in the document. The
Nazis ultimately succeeded in killing between five and six million of
Europe's Jews, with hundreds of thousands, mainly in the Soviet Union,
already dead by the time of this meeting. In the notes "transport to the
East" was used as a euphemism for transport to the extermination camps,
which were built after the Conference as part of Aktion Reinhart.
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30 copies 16th copy
Minutes of discussion.
I. The following persons took part in the discussion about the final solution of the Jewish question which took place in Berlin, am Grossen Wannsee No. 56/58 on 20 January 1942.
Gauleiter
Dr. Meyer and Reichsamtleiter Dr. Leibbrandt
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Reich
Ministry for the Occupied Eastern territories
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Secretary
of State Dr. Stuckart
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Reich
Ministry for the Interior
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Secretary
of State Neumann
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Plenipotentiary
for the Four Year Plan
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Secretary
of State Dr. Freisler
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Reich
Ministry of Justice
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Secretary
of State Dr. Buehler
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Office of
the Government General
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Under
Secretary of State Dr. Luther
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Foreign
Office
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SS-Oberfuehrer
Klopfer
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Party
Chancellery
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Ministerialdirektor
Kritzinger
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Reich
Chancellery
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SS-Gruppenfuehrer
Hofmann
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Race and
Settlement Main Office
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SS-Gruppenfuehrer
Mueller
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Reich Main
Security Office
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SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer
Eichmann
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SS-Oberfuehrer
Dr. Schoengarth
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Security
Police and SD
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Chief of
the Security Police and the SD in the Government General
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SS-Sturmbannfuehrer
Dr. Lange
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Security
Police and SD
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Commander
of the Security Police and the SD for the General-District Latvia,
as deputy of the Commander
of the Security Police and the SD for the Reich Commissariat
"Eastland". |
II. At the beginning of the discussion Chief of the Security Police and of the SD, SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich, reported that the Reich Marshal had appointed him delegate for the preparations for the final solution of the Jewish question in Europe and pointed out that this discussion had been called for the purpose of clarifying fundamental questions. The wish of the Reich Marshal to have a draft sent to him concerning organizational, factual and material interests in relation to the final solution of the Jewish question in Europe makes necessary an initial common action of all central offices immediately concerned with these questions in order to bring their general activities into line. The Reichsführer-SS and the Chief of the German Police (Chief of the Security Police and the SD) was entrusted with the official central handling of the final solution of the Jewish question without regard to geographic borders. The Chief of the Security Police and the SD then gave a short report of the struggle which has been carried on thus far against this enemy, the essential points being the following:
a)
the expulsion of the Jews from every sphere of life of the German people,
b)
the expulsion of the Jews from the living space of the German people.
By order of the Reich Marshal, a Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration was set up in January 1939 and the Chief of the Security Police and SD was entrusted with the management. Its most important tasks were
a)
to make all necessary arrangements for the preparation for an increased
emigration of the Jews,
b)
to direct the flow of emigration,
c)
to speed the procedure of emigration in each individual case.
All the offices realized the drawbacks of such enforced accelerated emigration. For the time being they had, however, tolerated it on account of the lack of other possible solutions of the problem.
The work concerned with emigration was, later on, not only a German problem, but also a problem with which the authorities of the countries to which the flow of emigrants was being directed would have to deal. Financial difficulties, such as the demand by various foreign governments for increasing sums of money to be presented at the time of the landing, the lack of shipping space, increasing restriction of entry permits, or the cancelling of such, increased extraordinarily the difficulties of emigration. In spite of these difficulties, 537,000 Jews were sent out of the country between the takeover of power and the deadline of 31 October 1941. Of these
approximately
360,000 were in Germany proper on 30 January 1933
approximately
147,000 were in Austria (Ostmark) on 15 March 1939
approximately
30,000 were in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia on 15 March 1939.
Apart from the necessary Reichsmark exchange, foreign currency had to presented at the time of landing. In order to save foreign exchange held by Germany, the foreign Jewish financial organizations were - with the help of Jewish organizations in Germany - made responsible for arranging an adequate amount of foreign currency. Up to 30 October 1941, these foreign Jews donated a total of around 9,500,000 dollars.
In the meantime the Reichsführer-SS and Chief of the German Police had prohibited emigration of Jews due to the dangers of an emigration in wartime and due to the possibilities of the East.
III. Another possible solution of the problem has now taken the place of emigration, i.e. the evacuation of the Jews to the East, provided that the Führer gives the appropriate approval in advance.
These actions are, however, only to be considered provisional, but practical experience is already being collected which is of the greatest importance in relation to the future final solution of the Jewish question.
Approximately 11 million Jews will be involved in the final solution of the European Jewish question, distributed as follows among the individual countries:
Country Number
A. Germany proper 131,800
Austria 43,700
Eastern territories 420,000
General Government 2,284,000
Bialystok 400,000
Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia 74,200
Estonia - free of Jews -
Latvia 3,500
Lithuania 34,000
Belgium 43,000
Denmark 5,600
France / occupied territory 165,000
unoccupied territory 700,000
Greece 69,600
Netherlands 160,800
Norway 1,300
B. Bulgaria 48,000
England 330,000
Finland 2,300
Ireland 4,000
Italy including Sardinia 58,000
Albania 200
Croatia 40,000
Portugal 3,000
Rumania including Bessarabia 342,000
Sweden 8,000
Switzerland 18,000
Serbia 10,000
Slovakia 88,000
Spain 6,000
Turkey (European portion) 55,500
Hungary 742,800
USSR 5,000,000
Ukraine 2,994,684
White Russia
excluding Bialystok 446,484
Total over 11,000,000
The number of Jews given here for foreign countries includes, however, only those Jews who still adhere to the Jewish faith, since some countries still do not have a definition of the term "Jew" according to racial principles.
The handling of the problem in the individual countries will meet with difficulties due to the attitude and outlook of the people there, especially in Hungary and Rumania. Thus, for example, even today the Jew can buy documents in Rumania that will officially prove his foreign citizenship.
The influence of the Jews in all walks of life in the USSR is well known. Approximately five million Jews live in the European part of the USSR, in the Asian part scarcely 1/4 million.
The breakdown of Jews residing in the European part of the USSR according to trades was approximately as follows:
Agriculture 9.1 %
Urban workers 14.8 %
In trade 20.0 %
Employed by the state 23.4 %
In private occupations such as
medical profession, press, theater, etc. 32.7 %
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.)
In the course of the practical execution of the final solution, Europe will be combed through from west to east. Germany proper, including the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, will have to be handled first due to the housing problem and additional social and political necessities.
The evacuated Jews will first be sent, group by group, to so-called transit ghettos, from which they will be transported to the East.
SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich went on to say that an important prerequisite for the evacuation as such is the exact definition of the persons involved.
It is not intended to evacuate Jews over 65 years old, but to send them to an old-age ghetto - Theresienstadt is being considered for this purpose.
In addition to these age groups - of the approximately 280,000 Jews in Germany proper and Austria on 31 October 1941, approximately 30% are over 65 years old - severely wounded veterans and Jews with war decorations (Iron Cross I) will be accepted in the old-age ghettos. With this expedient solution, in one fell swoop many interventions will be prevented.
The beginning of the individual larger evacuation actions will largely depend on military developments. Regarding the handling of the final solution in those European countries occupied and influenced by us, it was proposed that the appropriate expert of the Foreign Office discuss the matter with the responsible official of the Security Police and SD.
In Slovakia and Croatia the matter is no longer so difficult, since the most substantial problems in this respect have already been brought near a solution. In Rumania the government has in the meantime also appointed a commissioner for Jewish affairs. In order to settle the question in Hungary, it will soon be necessary to force an adviser for Jewish questions onto the Hungarian government.
With regard to taking up preparations for dealing with the problem in Italy, SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich considers it opportune to contact the chief of police with a view to these problems.
In occupied and unoccupied France, the registration of Jews for evacuation will in all probability proceed without great difficulty.
Under Secretary of State Luther calls attention in this matter to the fact that in some countries, such as the Scandinavian states, difficulties will arise if this problem is dealt with thoroughly and that it will therefore be advisable to defer actions in these countries. Besides, in view of the small numbers of Jews affected, this deferral will not cause any substantial limitation.
The Foreign Office sees no great difficulties for southeast and western Europe.
SS-Gruppenführer Hofmann plans to send an expert to Hungary from the Race and Settlement Main Office for general orientation at the time when the Chief of the Security Police and SD takes up the matter there. It was decided to assign this expert from the Race and Settlement Main Office, who will not work actively, as an assistant to the police attaché.
IV. In the course of the final solution plans, the Nuremberg Laws should provide a certain foundation, in which a prerequisite for the absolute solution of the problem is also the solution to the problem of mixed marriages and persons of mixed blood.
The Chief of the Security Police and the SD discusses the following points, at first theoretically, in regard to a letter from the chief of the Reich chancellery:
1) Treatment of Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree
Persons of mixed blood of the first degree will, as regards the final solution of the Jewish question, be treated as Jews.
From this treatment the following exceptions will be made:
a)
Persons of mixed blood of the first degree married to persons of German blood
if their marriage has resulted in children (persons of mixed blood of the
second degree). These persons of mixed blood of the second degree are to be
treated essentially as Germans.
b)
Persons of mixed blood of the first degree, for whom the highest offices of the
Party and State have already issued exemption permits in any sphere of life.
Each individual case must be examined, and it is not ruled out that the
decision may be made to the detriment of the person of mixed blood.
Persons of mixed blood of the first degree who are exempted from evacuation will be sterilized in order to prevent any offspring and to eliminate the problem of persons of mixed blood once and for all. Such sterilization will be voluntary. But it is required to remain in the Reich. The sterilized "person of mixed blood" is thereafter free of all restrictions to which he was previously subjected.
2) Treatment of Persons of Mixed Blood of the Second Degree
Persons of mixed blood of the second degree will be treated fundamentally as persons of German blood, with the exception of the following cases, in which the persons of mixed blood of the second degree will be considered as Jews:
a)
The person of mixed blood of the second degree was born of a marriage in which
both parents are persons of mixed blood.
b)
The person of mixed blood of the second degree has a racially especially
undesirable appearance that marks him outwardly as a Jew.
c)
The person of mixed blood of the second degree has a particularly bad police
and political record that shows that he feels and behaves like a Jew.
3) Marriages between Full Jews and Persons of German Blood.
Here it must be decided from case to case whether the Jewish partner will be evacuated or whether, with regard to the effects of such a step on the German relatives, [this mixed marriage] should be sent to an old-age ghetto.
4) Marriages between Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree and Persons of German Blood.
a)
Without Children.
If
no children have resulted from the marriage, the person of mixed blood of the
first degree will be evacuated or sent to an old-age ghetto (same treatment as
in the case of marriages between full Jews and persons of German blood, point
3.)
b)
With Children.
If
children have resulted from the marriage (persons of mixed blood of the second
degree), they will, if they are to be treated as Jews, be evacuated or sent to
a ghetto along with the parent of mixed blood of the first degree. If these
children are to be treated as Germans (regular cases), they are exempted from
evacuation as is therefore the parent of mixed blood of the first degree.
In these marriages (including the children) all members of the family will be treated as Jews and therefore be evacuated or sent to an old-age ghetto.
6) Marriages between Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree and Persons of Mixed Blood of the Second Degree.
In these marriages both partners will be evacuated or sent to an old-age ghetto without consideration of whether the marriage has produced children, since possible children will as a rule have stronger Jewish blood than the Jewish person of mixed blood of the second degree.
SS-Gruppenführer Hofmann advocates the opinion that sterilization will have to be widely used, since the person of mixed blood who is given the choice whether he will be evacuated or sterilized would rather undergo sterilization.
State Secretary Dr. Stuckart maintains that carrying out in practice of the just mentioned possibilities for solving the problem of mixed marriages and persons of mixed blood will create endless administrative work. In the second place, as the biological facts cannot be disregarded in any case, State Secretary Dr. Stuckart proposed proceeding to forced sterilization.
Furthermore, to simplify the problem of mixed marriages possibilities must be considered with the goal of the legislator saying something like: "These marriages have been dissolved."
With regard to the issue of the effect of the evacuation of Jews on the economy, State Secretary Neumann stated that Jews who are working in industries vital to the war effort, provided that no replacements are available, cannot be evacuated.
SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich indicated that these Jews would not be evacuated according to the rules he had approved for carrying out the evacuations then underway.
State Secretary Dr. Bühler stated that the General Government would welcome it if the final solution of this problem could be begun in the General Government, since on the one hand transportation does not play such a large role here nor would problems of labor supply hamper this action. Jews must be removed from the territory of the General Government as quickly as possible, since it is especially here that the Jew as an epidemic carrier represents an extreme danger and on the other hand he is causing permanent chaos in the economic structure of the country through continued black market dealings. Moreover, of the approximately 2 1/2 million Jews concerned, the majority is unfit for work.
State Secretary Dr. Bühler stated further that the solution to the Jewish question in the General Government is the responsibility of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD and that his efforts would be supported by the officials of the General Government. He had only one request, to solve the Jewish question in this area as quickly as possible.
In conclusion the different types of possible solutions were discussed, during which discussion both Gauleiter Dr. Meyer and State Secretary Dr. Bühler took the position that certain preparatory activities for the final solution should be carried out immediately in the territories in question, in which process alarming the populace must be avoided.
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.
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