The Wannsee Conference

Although many of the notes from the meeting were destroyed one of the 30 copies survived. The protocol of the conference was recorded by Eichmann, who disguised the planned genocide with a series of euphemisms. Despite the somewhat vague language used, the protocol provides evidence of the “final solution” pursued by the Nazis.

The phrase "the final solution of the Jewish question" can be found throughout the document. Here are some key passages from the minutes taken by Eichmann.

In the third paragraph it reads:

"Another possible solution of the problem (of the Jews) has now taken the place of emigration, ie 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." 

It is the phrase "treated accordingly" that most historians say links the meeting with the development of concentration camps - including Treblinka, Sobibor and Auschwitz-Birkenau - that were used to murder Jews, gypsies and the handicapped.

The notes from the Wannsee Conference - otherwise known as The Protocol also detail how many Jews Eichmann thought lived in Europe. He said: Albania, 200; the Netherlands, 69,600; Latvia, 3,500; Belgium, 43,000; and Russia, 5 million. In total, it was estimated that there were 11 million Jews living across Europe.

The conference did not set out who exactly was and was not to be considered a Jew. For example, if someone was married to a Jew etc. But it did say that those Jews who had been wounded fighting for Germany in World War One would be spent to special old age ghettos, rather than the death camps.

The protocol was discovered in Berlin in 1947 by Robert Kempner, assistant U.S. chief counsel in the Nuremberg Trials. A year later, it was used as important piece of evidence in the trial against the leading officials of the ministries.

See also: Action Reinhard