Finally Heydrich explains that the precise timing of each major evacuation will depend largely on military developments and will need the detailed collaboration between specialists in the Foreign Office, the Security Police and the Security Service. He thendiscusses specific, local factors in Slovakia, Croatia, Romania, Hungary, Italy and France.
At this point, when Heydrich has been expounding for almost forty-five minutes, we have our first minuted contribution from another participant – it is recorded that Luther (of the Foreign Office) points out that ‘dealing with these problems thoroughly will cause difficulties in some countries, particularly the Scandanavian states, and therefore he suggests deferring the settlement of this matter in these countries for the time being. Given the very small numbers of Jews there such a postponement would not amount to a serious restriction.’ But, he emphasises, the Foreign Office sees no major difficulties in south-eastern and western Europe. Hofmann then states that he ‘intends to send a specialist, from the Race and Settlement Main Office, to Hungary as soon as Heydrich is ready to tackle the matter there’.
Halfway through the conference there is a short break for refreshments, and we learn from Eichmann that alcohol is served and after this the participants relax more and the discussion becomes more of a ‘free-for-all’ with people responding to the issues Heydrich has raised.
The next section of the meeting is dominated by a bafflingly detailed discussion over exactly how Jewishness is to be defined – four pages of the minutes (not reproduced here) – with particular reference to ‘the problem of mixed marriages [Mischenen] and mixed parentage [Mischlinge]’.
Very few will be exempted from evacuation, and even those who are ‘will be sterilised in order to prevent the Mischlinge problem once and for all’. And then another characteristically cynical remark from Heydrich: ‘Sterilisation will be voluntary, but it is the precondition for remaining in the Reich.’
Towards the end of the debate about the treatment of Mischlinge, Hofmann observes that the sterilisation will have to be carried out on a wide scale because ‘once the Mischling faces the choicebetween evacuation and sterilisation, he will prefer to be sterilised’. This a clear recognition that ‘evacuation’ will be seen for what it is – extermination. Stuckart then expresses his concern that implementing the detailed differential treatments and exemptions just discussed could cause ‘endless administrative work’. Why not simply move to a policy of forced sterilisation (Zwangssterilisierung) for all?
This is one of the major surprises of the conference, what Eichmann later referred to as the ‘conversion’ of Stuckart away from the Interior Ministry’s previous policy regarding the Mischlinge and Mischenen.
After this the discussion moves on to the question of the war economy. Neumann warns that ‘Jews now working in essential war industries cannot be evacuated as long as there are no replacements for them’. Heydrich reassures him that these Jews ‘would not be evacuated anyway’.
Dr Bühler now raises the key issue of how the ‘Final Solution’ should proceed. He declares that the General Government (occupied Poland) ‘would welcome it if the Final Solution of this question would begin in the General Government first because the transportation problem was no overriding factor there [my emphasis]’.
This must make reference to the fact that the expansion of extermination camps in Poland meant that the Polish Jews would have very little distance to travel. We know that Himmler had met Globočnik (the SS and police leader in Lublin) on 13 October 1941 to discuss how Lublin’s Jews would be dealt with, and four days later Globočnik and Governor Frank (Bühler’s boss) further discussed these proposals. By November 1941 the extermination camp at Belzec had been started to be built and personnel formerly deployed on the T4 ‘euthanasia’ programme were already on site. We also know that the gaswagen at Chelmno had been in operation since December 1941. Bühler would have been aware of both of these initiatives. However, his remarks here imply that he also had learned of expansion plans for Auschwitz and the proposedsetting up of other extermination centres, that would be able to deal with a dramatically increased level of killing – most probably from a meeting he himself had with Himmler just a week before Wannsee, on 13 January 1942.
In a further reference here, Bühler remarks that, moreover, ‘the majority of the two and a half million Jews in question were anyhow unfit for work [arbeitsunfahig]’, and therefore the sooner they are dealt with the better. Finally, it’s recorded (and here again we can see the hand of Heydrich and Eichmann in the editing of these minutes) that Bühler understands that Heydrich is ‘in charge of the final solution of the Jewish question in the General Government’ and that all agencies there would assist him in this work.
As the end of the meeting nears, there is ‘a discussion about the various types of possible solutions’ (the term Lösungsmöglichkeiten is deployed here).
Eichmann testified later that the minutes concealed the fact that there had been open discussion about methods of killing at Wannsee and that ‘certain over-plain talk and jargon expressions had to be rendered into office language by me’ (i.e. euphemised). More specifically, Eichmann admitted under cross-examination in Jerusalem that the meeting then discussed ‘the business with the engine’ (an oblique reference to the gaswagen), and shooting – Dr Lange and Dr Schöngarth would both no doubt have contributed their experiences in the Einsatzgruppen here – but there was no mention of poison gas. Experiments with Zyklon B had already occurred at Auschwitz but were at too early a stage of development to be discussed.
Eichmann was particularly surprised at the language some of the civil servants used:
these gentlemen … sat together,12 and in very blunt words they referred to the matter … at that time I said to myself: look at that – Stuckart, who was always considered to be a very precise and very particular stickler for the law, and here the whole tone and all the manner of speech were totally out of keeping with legal language.
With the caution and cynicism befitting two Nazi lawyers, the Wannsee Conference ends, as we can see in the penultimate paragraph of the minutes, with Dr Meyer and Dr Bühler saying that ‘in connection with the final solution certain preparatory measures [should] be carried out in the occupied territories at once, but in such a way as to avoid alarming the local population [my emphasis]’.
The ‘preparatory measures’ Meyer and Bühler reference here are the various constructions which have already begun or have been planned – the extermination camps at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka, the ongoing gaswagen at Chelmno – all of these in the occupied territories.
The meeting had lasted approximately an hour and a half.
*
We learn from Hannah Arendt that afterwards:
Drinks were served and everyone had lunch – ‘a cosy little social gathering’ designed to strengthen the necessary personal contacts. It was a very important occasion for Eichmann who had never before mingled socially with so many ‘high personages’; he was by far the lowest in rank and social position of those present … he acted as secretary of the meeting [but] he was permitted, after the dignitaries had left, to sit down near the fireplace with his chief Müller and Heydrich.