Back in the Day: Nazis put the Final Solution on the record

January 20, 1942 Fifteen senior officials in the Nazi German regime meet for the Wannsee Conference to make official arrangements for the deportation and annihilation of Europe’s Jewish population. The meeting was chaired by Reinhard Heydrich, the SS General appointed with the permission of Adolf Hitler to implement what the regime called the “Final solution to the Jewish question”.

In reality, the persecution, deportation and extermination of Jews by the Nazis had been taking place for years but Heydrich intended to use the conference – named after the Berlin suburb in which it was held – to discuss the implementation of a formalised plan. Historians also believe one other purpose for the meeting was to make sure the different ministries of the regime understood and accepted the plans, that had been drawn up at the highest level thus implicating them all. Participants were each given lists of the numbers of Jews in European countries and they discussed criteria for deciding who was Jewish and to be deported. According to carefully edited Minutes of the meeting (see picture), Heydrich explained that Jews were to be transported to Eastern Europe and forced to work in such a way that most would “eliminated by natural causes”. Those fit enough to survive, he added, would be “treated accordingly.”

Although the Minutes do not show that ‘extermination’ was explicitly discussed, Adolf Eichmann later revealed after his detention in 1960 that after the meeting had officially ended, those present drank cognac and openly spoke about “methods of killing, about liquidation, about extermination.”

Wannsee House, the venue of the conference has since been transformed into a Holocaust museum.

Also on January 20: the English Parliament meets for the first time (1265); Edward VIII succeeds George V as king of the United Kingdom (1936); Iran releases 52 American hostages after 444 days (1981); kidnapping of Church of England envoy Terry Waite by militiamen in Lebanon (1987).

Born on January 20: André-Marie Ampère (1775), George Burns (1896), Buzz Aldrin (1930), David Lynch (1946), Gary Barlow (1971).

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