MUNKÁCSY TUDOMÁNYOS DIÁKKÖRI KONFERENCIA-2016
THE WANNSEE CONFERENCE, THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS THE
HOLOCAUST
Fülöpné Király Tünde
Jávorszki Hunor Benegúz
8/b Zrínyi Ilona Magyar-Angol Két Tan. Ált Isk.
The path to the Conference, antisemitism in Germany between the two
world wars
On 11th November in 1918 Germany signed the armistice with the Entente in the
forest of Compiégne, so after four years the World War I was over. On 9th November
the German Republic came into being and Emperor William II had to abdicate.
During the last year of the war Germany was weakened by revolutions. The German
fanatic youth could not believe that they had lost the war. They were always told
about the victory, so after the armistice they radicalized. A German radical right-wing
party, the DAP realised the discontent of them and tried to find a scapegoat who was
responsible for the defeat. Soon they thought that the social democrats and the
communists had been responsible and the Jews were supporting them. The Nazi’s
said, the revolutions, created by left-wing parties and the Jews „stabbed Germany in
the back” so Germany could not win the war. They also said that the Jews held the
financial world in their hands and they only wanted to have a huge wealth. The Nazis
wanted Germany to be free of Jews. And it was just the beginning.
The Nazi or Aryan race theory was based on the theory elaborated by Ernst Haeckel,
a German biologist. He developed his theory on the basis of Darwin’s evolution
theory. He said there was inequality between the races, because all of the people
have the forefather’s traditions and habits in their genomes and the interior races
always want to join and infect the superior races. After the Beer Hall coup on the 9th
of November in 1923 Hitler was imprisoned where he dictated the Mein Kampf to his
cellmate, Rudolph Hess. In the Mein Kampf, among other things, Hitler wrote down
his belief about the merging of inferior and superior races can deteriorate the
superior race and it was the great mistake of the Indo-Europeans that they left the
Paradise for the interior races. He wanted Germany to be racially clean, only with
Aryans, and to sweep Jews and other non-Aryans out from Germany.
After the NSDAP had won the elections in 1933, among other things, they wanted to
solve the Jewish question as well. At first, after the victory in the elections the interior
minister Wilhelm Frick spoke about the untearable contact between the race hygiene
and the German race and the eugenic is the base of the Nazi population policy. Two
weeks after his speech, the compulsory sterilization was introduced. Foreign
observers found Nazi antisemitism barbarian and said that Germany was thrown
back to the medieval ages. These observers believed that the German people were
against the antisemitism. Actually, antisemitism was supported by the German
people except socialists, liberals and conservatives, but they did not do anything
either. The first real atrocities against the Jewish population were the so called
“Nuremberg Laws”, introduced on the 15th of September in 1935 by dr. Wilhelm
Stuckart in the Reichstag. The first point was the stripping Jews of the citizenship and
ranked them subjects. It also banned the marriage and sexual contact between
Aryans and Jews. In 1934 they were banned from the stock exchange. Furthermore,
it was forbidden for a Jew to employ an Aryan woman under 35. These laws were
amended 13 times by the following years and finally Judaism was totally outlawed.
During the Olympics held in Berlin in 1936, half of the Jews were banned from civil
and private services, so a lot of them found hard to get by starved. In the first years
of the Third Reich the Jewish were totally supplanted from the public services and
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offices, newspapers, radio, agriculture etc. In a law, introduced in 1938 working as a
lawyer, a doctor or as a trader was forbidden for Jews.
By that time a lot of “ Illegal for Jews!”, “Entrance is refused for Jews!” and other
similar signs appeared, at first just in entertainment, but soon in shops, malls and
other buildings, where standard goods (e.g.: food, clothes etc) were vended.
During the terror of the Nazis, a lot of pogroms were launched. The most notorious,
and the most brutal, was the so called Kristallnacht, on 9th November 1938. The
name Kristallnacht (Crystal night) comes from the glittering of the broken glasses, of
the windows of Jew-owned shops. Within the confines of this pogrom Nazi
Stormtroopers burnt synagogues, broke into shops, owned by Jews and killed a lot of
Jewish people. Somewhere they only wrote “Jews” onto the windows and let the
population kill them.
The Conference
The Wansee Conference, held during the World War II, was taken place to solve the
Jewish question. The main role was Heydrick’s, who invited the participants on the
order of Hermann Göring Reichsmarschall. The aim was to clear the Lebensraum
from the non-Aryans as soon as possible. So Heydrick dated the conference on 20th
January, 1942, in Am Grossen Wansee 56-58. 17 people had been invited to the
conference, but only 15 could go. 14 offices were represented. Those people were:
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Gauleiter Dr. Alfred Meyer and Dr. Georg Leibbrandt from the Reich Ministry of the
occupied Eastern Territories
Secretary of State Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart from the Reich Interior Ministry
SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich protector of the Protectorate of Bohemia
and Moravia, Chief of the Gestapo
Secretary of State Erich Neumann Plenipotentiory of the Four Year Plan
Secretary of State Dr. Roland Freisler from the Reich Ministry of Justice
Secretary of State Dr. Joseph Buhler from the General Government
Under Secretary of State Dr. Martin Luther from the Reich Foreign Ministry
SS-Oberführer Dr. Gerhardt Klopfer from the Party Chancellory
Ministerialdirektor Dr. Wilhelm Kritzinger from the Reich Chancellory
SS-Gruppenführer Otto Hofmann from the Main Office of Race and Settlement
SS-Gruppenführer Heinrich Mueller and SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann
from the Reich Main Security Office
SS-Oberführer Dr. Karl Eberhardt Schoengart chief of the SS and SD in the General
Government
SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Rudolph Lange commander of the Security Police and SD
forces in Latvia
Heydrich’s inferior, Adolf Eichmann was responsible with the organisation of the
Conference.
To solve the question, at first the attendants were told about the division of the Jews
in the Lebensraum. About 11.000.000 Jewish people lived in Europe.
According to Heydrich’s opinion the amount of Jews were based on the data
provided by the affected countries that could be misleading, because some countries
(e.g.: UK) treat the racial Jews who had Christian religion as the real Jews.
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One of the most important questions was to agree about the mixed blooded Jews,
the mixed marriages and the specials, who were absolved by special acts. Before the
conference, Germany had a lot of laws, which protected the Jews. For example, if a
Jew had the highest rank of the Iron Cross, he/she was absolved from the acts
against the Jews. To begin with, Heydrich said, these laws would have been
repealed, because it facilitated a lot of Jews to survive. Then they agreed about the
question of the mixed blooded. There were 2 degrees of it. The first degree was the
halfblooded, who had 1 Jew parent or 2 grandparents. They were counted as Jews
so they had to be deported unless they were protected by special acts for example
they married Germans and had children. But if they were absolved from deportation,
they had to be sterilized. Then the 2nd degree had 1 Jew grandparent. They were
counted as Germans, but there were some exceptions, for example that they looked
like Jews or behaved like Jews, both parents were 1 st degree Jews and so on. The
marriages were important issues too. There were 4 types of marriages. The first was
the marriage between a Jew and a German. In these cases the offices should decide
that the Jew would be evacuated, or deported to the old-age ghetto. Then there was
the second type, if a first degree Jew and a German marry. The decision depended
on whether they had children or not. If they did not the Jew was automatically
evacuated or placed to the old-age ghetto. But if they had children the offices had to
decide whether the children were counted as Jews or not. If they were, then the Jew
parent and the children were evacuated or deported to the old-age ghetto, but if the
children were counted as Germans they could stay with the Jew parent. The fourth
and fifth type was the marriage between first degree Jews and Jews or first and
second degree Jews. In these cases (if they had a children or not) all of them were
counted as Jews.
Before the conference the Nazis had some plans to clear the Lebensraum. The first
plan was emigration. The aim of it was to clear Germany from Jews legally. This kind
of solution was funded by the Jewish Church, the Jews or Jewish political
movements. Because there were poor Jews, who could not afford to emigrate, the
principle was the wealthy Jews would finance the poor ones. After Poland was
occupied and divided, the Nazi leaders wanted to create a Jew reservation between
the Vistula and the Bug. Heydrich’s team did not have a huge amount of time but
started the deportation really quickly. His inferior, Adolf Eichmann, who was working
for the Office of Jewish Affairs, prepared for the deportation of more than 75.000
Jews. But as it started really fast, it finished at summer 1942. The truth was, only a
few thousands of Jews were deported. The leader of the General Government, Hans
Frank, wanted to create the “perfect colony” so he tried to stop the deportation to the
General Government. Soon, Frank was supported by Goering, because the
Reichsmarschall found the uncontrolled migration dangerous. So this plan was over.
The Nazi high command tried to find the perfect way to clean Germany. Then
someone said Madagascar, as one possible solution. It was found out in the 1930s
and May 1940 Himmler mentioned it again. Hitler told this possibility to Mussolini and
Raeder in June 1940. The inferiors of Eichmann were prepared for the climate and
they were vaccinated against Malaria. But in August it was visible for the leaders, that
this plan had no chance to be successful, because Germany lost against the UK, so
they did not dominate the seas. Until the beginning of the operation Barbarossa the
Nazis wanted to find a place for the Jews to live.
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The second plan was the sterilization that had been found out before Wansee but
seriously mentioned in the course of the conference. The basic theory was to sterilize
the half Jews, half Germans, if they were absolved from evacuation. In Wansee this
kind of solution was supported by the participants, who did not want the Jews to get
killed for example dr. Wilhelm Kritzinger, and Otto Hofmann. The proposal of
Hofmann, was to make the mixed blooded people to decide between deportation and
sterilization. But dr. Stuckart suggested to sterilize all of the Jews. Dr. Erich Neumann
said that the Jews could be employed in the German factories. Anyway, it was
perceptible, that the different participants wanted different solutions. Dr. Joseph
Buehler wanted the future solution to be begun in the General Government, because
there were a lot of Jews, but no problem with transportation and labour. Then
Heydrich mentioned the T-4 (Euthanasia) program. During this program a lot of
mentally injured people were killed by injections or poisonous gas. Based on the T-4
the German camps tested to kill Jews with poisonous gas. The first plan was to put
them onto lorries, where the lorry was filled with carbon-monoxide. At first this kind of
method was used in Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka concentration camps. But as
Eichmann said, a gas was needed, which was cheaper and killed faster. They chose
the so called Zyklon-B. It was firstly used in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration
camp, by the suggestion of Rudolph Hoess, commander of the camp. The milder
participants (for example: dr. Wilhelm Kritzinger, dr. Wilhelm Stuckart), who obeyed
the laws, did not the laws did not want the Jews to be killed. But as Heydrick said, the
representatives of the SS would solve the question. State secretary dr. Neumann
suggested the Jews should be directed to factories and to agriculture, so their labour
force would solve the labour shortage and it would be totally free. But as general
Mueller said, they should not notice only economic interest, because the most
important was to clean the III. Reich. After two hours, which were followed by
arguments between the lawyers, the fanatical Nazis and the representatives of the
SS offices the agreement was created. This was the so called Endlösung (final
solution).
Within the framework of the Endlösung about 6.000.000 Jews were killed in the
labour, concentration and extermination camps, the ghettos, in the course of the
forced marches or during the deportation. The Jews were deported to the camps in
cattle wagons. Before the arrival, a lot of them died of starvation or because of the
diseases. The largest extermination and labour camp operated in Upper-Silesia in the
General Government called Auschwitz. In the main part of Auschwitz, which was
called Auschwitz-Birkenau, nearly 1.000.000 Jews were gassed or died of hunger or
diseases. It was liberated on the 27th of January in 1945, by the 322nd artillery unit of
the Red Army.
Consequences
During the Holocaust nearly 5.600.000 Jews were exterminated, killed by diseases or
died because of starvation, from 22 states or protectorates in the Nazi extermination
or concentration camps. There were 7 extermination camps. They were: Treblinka,
Sobibor, Majdanek, Belzec, Kulmhof, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Chelmno. These camps
were the centres of extermination.
On the 8th of May in 1945 following the German capitulation the World War II was
over in Europe. The Allies (UK, USA, France and the USSR) tried to arrest all the
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people who were responsible for the war, for the Holocaust, for the suffering. Against
21 suspects (who were the highest leaders of the III Reich), The Trial of Nuremberg
was taken place. Let’s have a closer look at what happened with the Wansee
participants.
Gestapo Chief Heinrich Mueller: Disappeared after the war. He was last seen in
Hitler’s bunker, April 29, 1945.
Dr. Gerhardt Klopfer: Arrested in 1945 for war crimes, discharged for lack of
evidence. He became a tax advisor. He died in 1987.
Dr. Wilhelm Kritzinger: Arrested in 1945 for war crimes. At Nuremberg he declared
himself ashamed of Nazi atrocities. Released and died in 1947.
SS Gruppenführer Otto Hofmann: Arrested in 1945 for war crimes. Sentenced to 25
years imprisonment, but served only 6. He worked as a business clerk. He died in
1982.
Dr. George Leibbrandt: Arrested in 1945 for war crimes, but released for lack of
evidence. He worked for the American Cultural Institute. He died in 1982.
Dr. Alfred Meyer: Committed suicide in the spring of 1945.
Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart: Arrested in 1945 for war crimes. He was sentenced to 4 years
imprisonment. He died in a traffic accident in 1953.
Dr. Martin Luther: He was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1944, for
conspiring against his superior, von Ribbentropp. He died of heart attack in 1945.
Dr. Erich Neumann: Arrested for war crimes in 1945. He was released for lack of
evidence and died in 1948.
SS Sturmbannführer Dr. Rudolph Lange: Died in action, February 1945, Poznan,
Poland.
Dr. Joseph Bühler: Arrested in 1945. He was convicted of “crimes against the Polish
people”. He was executed August 1948, Cracow, Poland.
SS Oberführer Dr. Karl Eberhard Schoengart: Convicted by a British military court for
“a terror program without higher authority”. He was executed February 1946.
Dr. Roland Freisler: Died in an air raid, February 1945, Berlin.
SS Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann: Captured in Argentina by Israeli agents in
1960. He was tried, convicted and hanged for crimes against humanity, 31 May
1962, Jerusalem.
SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich: Flew back to Prague. After a few weeks
of terror he deserved the title: Butcher of Prague. He was shot down by two Czech
people. He was taken into hospital but fall into coma and died 4 July 1942. His death
was retaliated on a small Czech village, Lidice.
And what happened to the Wansee minutes-book? After the Conference, the
participants were sent a copy of the whole record, which was made during the
meeting. The command was to memorize, show to superiors and then destroy it, but
Martin Luther’s copy of the Wansee Conference minutes was discovered in the files
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of the German Foreign Ministry by American investigators in 1947. It is the only
record of the meeting that survives.
Bibliography
The Wannsee Conference and the genocide of the European Jews, Catalogue of the
Permanent Exhibition, House of the Wannsee Conference, Berlin, 2009
William L. Shirer: A Harmadik Birodalom felemelkedése és bukása, Teleteacher,
Budapest, 1995
Mark Roseman: A végső megoldás, a Wannsee-jegyzőkönyv, Magyar Könyvklub,
Budapest, 2003
Pálinkó György: A II. Világháború, Nagykönyv Kiadó, Debrecen, 2005
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