The Wannsee Protocol: Object of Revisionist Falsification of History

The Wannsee Conference - which was initially scheduled for December 9, 1941 but postponed on short notice - took place on January 20, 1942 at a suburban villa on the shores of Berlin's Wannsee lake. Chaired by Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt), 15 high-ranking officials of the German bureaucracy, the SS- and police-apparatus discussed the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question", while enjoying the lovely sight of the villa's gardens and the lake. It was only after the Protocol (minutes) of the conference was found in 1947 that the conference was named "Wannsee Conference" after its location.


The Holocaust History Project is proud to present a text based on a paper by Christian Mentel delivered in November 2009 at the memorial site House of the Wannsee Conference in Berlin, Germany. A longer German version is available here. An even more detailed German-language article with complete references can be downloaded here. In addition, the memorial site's multi-language webpage at www.ghwk.de offers a wealth of material, including scans of historical documents. For generous and invaluable assistance in translating the text and beyond, the author wishes to thank Gord McFee.

Before the Wannsee Conference Expansion of the Combat Zone

Seventy years ago, in December 1941, Japan began a war with the attack on Pearl Harbor that was joined a few days later by the Nazi Reich with its declaration of war on the USA. Thereby the European and Pacific wars became a world war.

On January 20, 1942, fifteen high-ranking bureaucrats of the Nazi regime came together for a conference, which later would become known as the "Wannsee Conference". It was no longer necessary at that time to come to a decision about the murder of the European Jews because it had already been underway for some time. The hitherto disenfranchisement, persecution and expulsion of the Jews had been replaced in the previous months by the extermination of the Jews.

In the following article, which appeared on December 11, 2011 in the Berlin daily "Tagesspiegel", the Berlin historian Ernst Piper describes the beginning of the Holocaust. Piper is known for his biography of Alfred Rosenberg, whom he characterized as "Hitler's principal ideologue". We thank Ernst Piper for his friendly permission to publish his article on our site, as well as the English translation by Gord McFee.

The German version is available here:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/piper/piper-deutsch.shtml

The English translation here:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/piper/piper-english.shtml

In the Nazis' Words

Gord McFee has put together a collection of quotations by Nazi leaders that speaks for itself. The common thread running through all of these quotations is the annihilation of the Jews. All quotations are from Nazi documents, books or speeches, and the German original has in most cases been provided.


The collection can be found at: http://www.holocaust-history.org/nazis-words/

December 12, 1941: Hitler Orders the Final Solution

The historian Christian Gerlach proves that on this day Hitler made the fundamental decision to annihilate all European Jews.

Historians have long searched for the order to annihilate the Jews or - insofar as they excluded a Fuehrer-order - for other central documents. The Wannsee Protocol was rejected. Here second-level men were to be found, here they spoke not of an order, but rather an authorization of Hitler. Characteristically, a pre-arranged agreement applied to this meeting, ordered from above. At the least, documentary criteria had to be found that permitted plausible inferences as to place, point in time and personal construction of such a conversation. The research led nowhere.

Now however a 34-year old Berlin historian [translator's note: Geschichtswissenschaft is science of history] has precisely answered the old question. And to say it right up front: the proof is ingenious. He didn't publish it in one of the eternally boring academic tomes and in so doing made the right choice. The work appeared in Volume 18 (6th year, November 1997) of the unorthodox, independent magazine "Werkstatt Geschichte." Written with practically mathematical precision, the essay covers 37 pages, including 223 source notes. The title is: "The Wannsee Conference, the fate of German Jews and Hitler's fundamental political decision to murder all European Jews." The author's name is Christian Gerlach. He has found proof of an internal speech of Hitler's from 1941 that no other researcher had even mentioned before.

The original German edition of this article  appeared December 13, 1997 in theBerliner Zeitung. This article, and an English translation by Gord McFee appears with the friendly permission of the Berlin Verlag and the author at the Holocaust History Project.

http://www.holocaust-history.org/december-12-1941/

Are The Jews Central to the Holocaust?

Does the Holocaust have a particularly crucial and central Jewish element, even though millions of others died? In an article at The Holocaust History Project website, Gord McFee argues that "the Holocaust, from its conception to its implementation had a distinctly Jewish aspect to it and, arguably without this Jewish aspect, there would have been no Holocaust. Most of the non-Jewish people would not have been killed because the killing machinery would not have been put into operation." A link to the article is below.

http://www.holocaust-history.org/jews-central/

Albert Speer's Edifice of Lies

Albert Speer, Hitler's Armaments Minister, was one of the twenty-two defendants at the trial of the major Nazi war criminals in 1945-1946. He was charged on all four counts of the indictment (planning aggressive war, crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity). The Tribunal acquitted him on counts 1 and 2, and found him guilty on counts 3 and 4. He was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment.

New evidence would appear to indicate that he was indeed present at the Posen speech of October 6, 1943 and must therefore have known about the extermination program. And the evidence comes from Speer himself.

The Holocaust History project has an article discussing this evidence in German and English.  The article was written by Sven Felix Kellerhoff, and is translated into English by THHP's Gord McFee. The article may be found at the link below.

http://www.holocaust-history.org/speer-know/

May 2000

May 29, 2000. Updated questions and answers.
May 16, 2000. Added Gord McFee's essay Where Did David Irving Go Wrong?
Updated questions and answers.
May 15, 2000. Added a new section on CODOH including:

• An open letter from John Silber.
• The ad we placed in Emporia State University's newspaper,the Bulletin, in response to an ad placed by CODOH.
• A letter to the editor of the Bulletin written by Gord McFee.

Added a letter from Joel Hayward.

February 2000

February 13, 2000. Added more questions and answers.
February 1, 2000. Added the essay Are the Jews Central to the Holocaust by Gordon McFee. Also added a list of selected links to other sites.

January 1999

January 15, 1999. Added eight wartime documents concerning Auschwitz.
January 3, 1999. Added Gord McFee's collection of quotations: In the Nazis' Words.
January 2, 1999. We've added a great deal of new material today:

• new questions and answers
• Volume 4 of the "blue series"
• and Stig Hornshøj-Møller's The Führer Myth: an English translation of five chapters from his Danish book Führer-Mythos - plus a prefatory essay on the writing of the book.