As Germany observes the anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, witnesses of the Nazi era are dying and antisemitism is resurgent in Europe and the United States.
80 Years Ago the Nazis Planned the 'Final Solution.' It Took 90 Minutes.
BERLIN — On Jan. 20, 1942, 15 high-ranking officials of the Nazi bureaucracy met in a villa on Lake Wannsee on the western edge of Berlin. Nibbles were served and washed down with cognac. There was only one point on the agenda: "The organizational, logistical and material steps for a final solution of the Jewish question in Europe."
Planning the Holocaust took all of 90 minutes.
Eighty years after the infamous Wannsee Conference that meticulously mapped it out, the bureaucratic efficiency of it remains as unnerving as ever.
The minutes taken that day and typed up on 15 pages do not explicitly refer to murder. They use phrases like "evacuation" and "reduction" and "treatment" — and divide up the task among different government departments and their "pertinent specialists."
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