Wannsee Conference
Name Title Organization Superior
SS- Obergruppenführer ( Lieutenant-General ) Reinhard Heydrich Chief of the RSHA Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia Presiding Schutzstaffel ( SS ) Reichsführer-SS ( Reich Leader SS ) Heinrich Himmler
SS- Gruppenführer ( Major-General ) Otto Hofmann Head of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office ( RuSHA ) Schutzstaffel ( SS ) Reichsführer -SS Heinrich Himmler
SS- Gruppenführer ( Major-General ) Heinrich Müller Chief of Amt IV ( Gestapo ) Reich Main Security Office ( RSHA ) , Schutzstaffel Chief of the RSHA SS- Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich
SS- Oberführer ( Senior Colonel ) Dr. Karl Eberhard Schöngarth Commander of the SiPo and the SD in the General Government SiPo and SD , RSHA , Schutzstaffel Chief of the RSHA SS- Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich
SS- Oberführer ( Senior Colonel ) Dr. Gerhard Klopfer Permanent Secretary Nazi Party Chancellery Chief of the Party Chancellery Martin Bormann
SS- Obersturmbannführer ( Lieutenant Colonel ) Adolf Eichmann Head of Referat IV B4 of the Gestapo Recording secretary Gestapo , RSHA , Schutzstaffel Chief of Amt IV SS- Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller
SS- Sturmbannführer ( Major ) Dr. Rudolf Lange Commander of the SiPo and the SD for Latvia ; Deputy Commander of the SiPo and the SD for the RKO Head of Einsatzkommando 2 SiPo and SD , RSHA , Schutzstaffel SS- Brigadeführer ( Brigadier General ) and Generalmajor der Polizei ( Brigadier-General of Police ) Dr. Franz Walter Stahlecker
Dr. Georg Leibbrandt Reichsamtleiter ( Reich Head Office ) Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories Dr. Alfred Rosenberg
Dr. Alfred Meyer Gauleiter ( Regional Party Leader ) State Secretary and Deputy Reich Minister Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories Dr. Alfred Rosenberg
Dr. Josef Bühler State Secretary General Government ( Polish Occupation Authority ) Governor-General Dr. Hans Frank
Dr. Roland Freisler State Secretary Reich Ministry of Justice Reich Minister of Justice Dr. Franz Schlegelberger
SS- Brigadeführer ( Brigadier General ) Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart State Secretary Reich Interior Ministry Reich Minister of the Interior Dr. Wilhelm Frick
SS- Oberführer ( Senior Colonel ) Erich Neumann State Secretary Office of the Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan Hermann Göring
Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger Permanent Secretary Reich Chancellery Reich Minister and head of the Reich Chancellery SS- Obergruppenführer Dr. Hans Lammers
Martin Luther Under-Secretary Reich Foreign Ministry Ernst von Weizsäcker , State Secretary to Reich Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop
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 . [ 40 ] Of the 15 who attended , 8 held academic doctorates . [ 41 ]
The Wannsee Conference (German: Wannseekonferenz) was a meeting of senior government officials of Nazi Germany and Schutzstaffel (SS) leaders, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. The purpose of the conference, called by the director of the Reich Main Security Office SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, was to ensure the co-operation of administrative leaders of various government departments in the implementation of the Final solution to the Jewish question (German: Endlösung der Judenfrage), whereby most of the Jews of German-occupied Europe would be deported to occupied Poland and murdered. Conference participants included representatives from several government ministries, including state secretaries from the Foreign Office, the justice, interior, and state ministries, and representatives from the SS. In the course of the meeting, Heydrich outlined how European Jews would be rounded up and sent to extermination camps in the General Government (the occupied part of Poland), where they would be killed. 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 fate of the deportees would become an internal matter under the purview of the SS. A secondary goal was to arrive at a definition of who was Jewish. One copy of the Protocol with circulated minutes of the meeting survived the war. It was found by Robert Kempner in March 1947 among files that had been seized from the German Foreign Office.