Talk:Wannsee Conference

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Talk:Wannsee Conference/Archive 1

As promised I have rewritten this article and archived all this rather silly and irrelevant talk. Any attempt to add revisionist nonsense to this article will be reverted. Adam 13:33, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Are you saying you will revert only material which is patently "nonsense", or are you saying you will deem any material associated with revisionism automatically to be "nonsense"? Wulfilia 08:03, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I will judge all edits on their merits. Nonsense of any type will be reverted. Adam 08:41, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Will you consider material to be nonsense merely because it is associated with revisionism? Wulfilia 04:07, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


Just out of curiosity - after reading the lead statement ( Adam rewriting and silly stuff ) I checked out the original wiki article ( 2002 ). It was full of it but was actually a far superior product. How did it get so long and so full of it - dare I guess at the author's identity, silly me.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 159 109 80 63 (talk • contribs)

You are a known Holocaust denier, and this will be taken into account by all who read your comments.--Anthony.bradbury 22:19, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] To plan or to inform?

I question the accuracy of the opening remark: "The purpose of the conference was to plan the 'Final solution...'" I guess it depends on exactly what is meant by "plan", but it sounds as if the main issue was open before the conference and decided during it. This contradicts the more accurate statement later in the article: "It thus became necessary to bring together representatives of all the relevant departments to explain to them what was intended and how it was to be carried out, and to make it clear that this undertaking was done on the highest authority of the Reich and could not be resisted." In other words the main purpose was to inform not to plan, and no important decisions were made. I propose changing "plan" to "inform senior Nazi's of plans for", but there are other options. --Zerotalk 12:44, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's a fair comment. The main purpose of the conference, as revealed in the minutes, was to clarify that Jews and half-Jews (with some exceptions) would be deported to the East - anyone who refuses to believe that this means to Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, Chelmno, Maidenek or Belsec has his head in the sand - and that the SS would be in charge of the operation. It is clear that the intent, as shown in the document signed by Goering and quoted at the conference by Heydrich, was to notify all relevant departments of the plans alrady formulated by the SS. It is assumed that there was a verbal directive from Hitler, which has not been definitively attested to, although the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming.--Anthony.bradbury 18:00, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree that is a better wording. Adam 03:25, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


90 minutes is an informational meeting at best. Using Eichmann's testimony, from many years later - when he was trying to not get hung, as valuable intrepretative information shows how uninformative the Wannsee document is. One of the opening qoutes attributed to Hitler - "looking sideways" - from some notes by Goring. Any citation as to where to read the original? The citation given may have the quote but finding it in the maze is virtually impossible.


It appears this article was written with the "hope" that noone would bother to actually clink the link to, and read, the Wannsee report. By the war's beginning there appears to have been very few Jews in Germany ( or most of what most people call Europe ). The Wannsee counts include Russia, etc - places the Germans ended up never conquering. Unless every Jew in Russia, etc ran to the border and begged to be caught by the Germans they appeared to be well out of Hitler's grasp.159.105.80.63 10:59, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

On the date of the conference there were 3-4 million Jews in Poland; 500,000 in Hungary; perhaps 5 million in the USSR, which at that time the Nazi government expected ultimately to control, and smaller but significant numbers in France, belgium, Holland, Scandinavia and, of course, in Great Britain. There were small numbers in the Baltic states, but, as reported at the conference, none in Estonia. Incidentally, according to the Simon Wiesenthal institute, at the end of the war in Europe there were still some 7,000 Jews in Berlin!--Anthony.bradbury 11:18, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rank

I have made a minor edit. Heydrich was, at the time of receipt of the directive from Goering, only a Gruppenfuhrer. He was promoted to Obergruppenfuhrer on 27 9 41.--Anthony.bradbury 21:26, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I have deleted all unsigned / anonymous commentary on this page and will continue to do so. This is a page for serious discussion of a serious topic by serious people, not a playground for neo-Nazi crackpots. Adam 03:25, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Attendees

I have added a few words to the first now paragraph, to clarify that not all attenders were confirmed Nazis. Kritzinger certainly was not, and possibly Neumann.--Anthony.bradbury 17:19, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

How do you define "not a Nazi"? Adam 09:35, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, my comment was, in hindsight, disgracefully fuzzy. What I meant was that Kritzinger, and perhaps Neumann, were not rabid followers of the Nazi anti-semitic policy in the way that the other attendees appear to have been.--Anthony.bradbury 11:12, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] See Also?

Seems odd there isnt a see also, maybe listing other important events in the Holocaust, or are we relying on in article links?

[edit] 27 million Slavs

Didn't they plan to liquiadate the Slavs of Europe in similar breakdowns to the Jews, extermination and work camps, etc. Wasn't this phase two of the grand plan. Londo06 22:24, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Maybe: certainly Hitler is on record as not wanting Slavs in the Third Reich, although that did not stop Himmmler from recruiting them to the SS in 1944. But they were not discussed, as far as the surviving minutes show, at Wannsee.--Anthony.bradbury 22:04, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Was relying of a documentary for this information. I wouldn't trust that link though, it states words changed for clarity. After reading the original German copy there are inconsistencies. Mostly with the 'odd' language used by the Nazis. Londo06 06:29, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 'Look sideways' ?

This phrase in the quotation (from Browning) doesn't make sense. I imagine the original German is 'scheel ansehen' which means 'to pull a face (at someone)' - and the thing is lifted from Kaiser Wilhelm II's 'Hunnenrede' of 1900. I was tempted to correct the translation, but I didn't do so as I don't know at which point the mistranslation arose. In other words, it's possible that as a quotation it's mechanically correct. Norvo 13:02, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

If someone has a copy of the source from which this quotation is taken, then it is not a problem - we can check if the quote itself is the problem or a translation on this site. If the quote is as it is written, then there is no point in changing. Ultimately, we could look at a source copy of the minutes themselves in German. ck lostsword • T • C 13:09, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
This quote is, of course, from the meeting of July 16 between Hitler, Goering and senior personnel and not from the discussion at Wannsee. I do not have a copy of the original in German, but the translation of the minute made by Martin Bormann was given in evidence at Nuremberg.--Anthony.bradbury"talk" 14:54, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gerlach taken as gospel?

The article currently seems to credit Christian Gerlach's thesis that the Conference's purpose changed after it was reset, and that originally the Final Solution wasn't the topic -- wasn't even decided yet. I'm an amateur on the subject, but is that anything like a consensus view? Christopher Browning doesn't buy it, I know from his endnotes in The Origins of the Final Solution, but Michael Burleigh does in his survey of the Third Reich.

Any experts care to comment or edit? ----Andersonblog 21:38, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Bialystok"

Białystok is merely a city in Poland, and it's entire population was not 400,000 (and isn't even now). --HanzoHattori (talk) 03:21, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Martin Luther"

I have removed the link; it leads to Martin Luther, the father of the Reformation, and not the individual referenced in this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.21.84.77 (talk) 22:05, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Who was a jew-hater, too —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.164.211.112 (talk) 11:17, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Text of memorial plaque

An archival photograph dated 1973 shows the text of a memorial plaque on the building where the Wannsee Conference was held. The text, in German:

IM DIESEM HAUS FAND IM JANUAR 1942 DIE BERÜCHTIGTE WANNSEE-KONFERENZ STATT

DEM GEDENKEN DER DURCH NATIONALSOZIALISTISCHE GEWALTHERRSCHAFT UMGEKOMMENEN JÜDISCHEN MITMENSCHEN

The photographer is the late Miriam Novitch; I have no further information at present. -- Deborahjay (talk) 12:28, 15 May 2008 (UTC)