THE WANNSEE CONFERENCE:
90 MINUTES THAT CHANGED WORLD HISTORY

Claudia Dunlea

DESCRIPTION: On January 20, 1942, in a grand villa on the shore of Berlin’s Lake Wannsee, a conference of Nazi officers produced a paper known as the Wannsee Protocol. This plan laid the groundwork for a “Final Solution” to the Jewish Question.

This Protocol has always mystified us. How should we understand this methodical businesslike discussion of holocaust? Why was the meeting even necessary? Hundreds of thousands of Jews had already been shot in Russia or gassed in the camp at Chelmno. Holocaust deniers sometimes contend that, because Hitler was not present at this meeting, and because the genocidal nature of the “Final Solution” was not spelled out explicitly, somehow this means that there was no deliberate policy from the top ordering the destruction of the Jews in Europe.

This one-time lecture seeks to unravel the reasons behind the Wannsee meeting, describe what happened there, and explain how it was that on a snowy day, 15 well-educated young men met to talk murder.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION: Dr. Claudia Dunlea is Visiting Instructor of History at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). She received her doctorate in European Integration History from the University of Hamburg, Germany, in 2003. Dr. Dunlea is the author of a book that investigates the origins of a supranational European foreign policy in the 1950s. Her recent research on the diplomatic relations of the European Union was published in two articles.