La conferenza di Wannsee e la pianificazione dello sterminio: fonti e responsabilità

Wannsee is a neighborhood in Berlin that extends along the shore of the lake from which it takes its name, the Großer Wannsee or "Great Wansee," one of four in the German capital. On its shore stands Villa Marlier, which made history on January 20, 1942, when it hosted the meeting during which representatives of the Nazi Party, members of the Gestapo and SS, and high-ranking state bureaucrats defined the legal, economic, technical, and administrative aspects of the so-called "Final Solution," which was to lead to the complete elimination of Europe's Jews. The host of the so-called Wannsee Conference was Reinhard Heydrich, a leading SS official and Director of the Reich Security Main Office. At his side was Adolf Heichmann, the train man and logistics expert who would actually organize the deportation of the Jews. The meeting, which lasted only 90 minutes, was attended by thirteen other people, as well as a stenographer whose identity remains unknown. The primary objective of the meeting was to clarify that Herman Goering and Heinrich Himmler had entrusted Haydrick and the SS with the task of completing the so-called final solution to the Jewish problem. Indeed, according to Haydrick himself, the SS was the only organization with the experience, expertise, and, above all, the determination needed to complete this criminal task. The systematic elimination of Jews in Eastern Europe had been underway for months. The second objective of the meeting was therefore to make all participants aware that what was happening in Eastern Europe would also happen in Germany and throughout Europe. No state apparatus could claim ignorance, and at the same time, it was required to guarantee the SS its full cooperation. Major Rudolf Lange, who commanded Einsatzkommando 2 in Latvia, where he eliminated approximately 35,000 Jews, attended the meeting. Every aspect of the Final Solution is examined in detail, from transportation to the gas chambers, from mixed marriages to relations with other European states destined to be affected by the—in inverted commas—problem. The only ones to raise some marginal doubts are Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger, representing the Reich Chancellery, and Wilhelm Stuckart, the lawyer who had been among the authors of the Nuremberg Laws—implemented against German Jews—who is attending Wansee representing the Ministry of the Interior. The others are united behind Haydrick. It is disconcerting to note how all the participants at the Wansee conference experience this event as a routine business, a bureaucratic problem, devoid of ethical implications, to be addressed efficiently. Habituation to a criminal ideology can lead to this. Nothing is left untouched, starting with the reuse of the assets seized from the murdered Jews. At the end of the conference, Haydrick declares himself satisfied with the results achieved, but above all with the lack of resistance and any opposition. The conference was held in utmost secrecy. At the end, a report was compiled in thirty copies, which was sent not only to the participants but also to their top officials. The strict order was to destroy it after discussing it with one's superiors. At the Nuremberg trials, the Wannsee Conference was virtually ignored. But not all copies were destroyed. The one addressed to the Foreign Ministry was found in 1947 and seized by the Americans. The general public, however, only learned what happened at Wannsee in 1960 when Adolf Eichmann was put on trial in Jerusalem. On that occasion, the document was presented to the court by the prosecution. The Wannsee report is of extraordinary historical importance because it is the first document to explicitly and bluntly describe everything related to the Final Solution, revealing that not only the Nazis but also the highest levels of the civil service were aware of it and had pledged their cooperation.