Wansseeconferentie

The aim

The aim of this conference was to achieve a final solution of the Jewish problem. The Nazis called it the “Endlösung der Judenfrage”.

First it was the purpose/aim of the Nazis to let the Jews leave Germany voluntarily by intimidation, discrimination and to exclusion them. A well known example is the Kristallnacht, and álso the forbidden entry signs in public facilities, the boycott of Jewish business and maintaining the Nuremberg laws.

After it The Germans wanted to deport Jews from Europe. However, this plan was never carried out.

Jews who stayed in Germany after 1938, were imprisoned in concentration camps and ghettos, like the infamous Warsaw ghetto.

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, large pieces of the Soviet Union became in the hands of the Germans. In these areas also stood many Jews, who had to be killed or send to concentration camps by special forces, “the Einsatzgruppen”.

However, the concentration camps and ghettos, could no longer meet the large numbers of prisoners.

Some senior German officials and SS officers, including Reinhard Heydrich, were instructed to resolve once and for all the “Jewish problem”. the Jews had to be effectively killed.