CLIL History

DEMOCRACIES IN CRISIS AND TOTALITARIAN REGIMES (1924-1945) The Final Solution The Wannsee Conference was a meeting that was held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. It was convened by Reinhard Heydrich, Chief of the Security Police and of the Security Service, to inform other Nazi officials about the extraordinary operations that were planned to carry out the final solution to the Jewish question . No one among those present raised objections. The minutes of the meeting were drawn up by Adolf Eichmann, who was one of the people who had the greatest responsibility for the Shoah. PRIMARY SOURCE from The Wannsee Conference del 20 gennaio 1942: At the beginning of the discussion the Chief Villa Marlier, house of the Wannsee Conference. of the Security Police (Gestapo or Geheime Staatspolizei, Secret State Police ) and of the SD (Sicherheitsdienst, Security Service ) SS-Obergruppenf hrer (Schutzstaffel-Obergruppenf hrer, Protective Echelon-Senior group leader) Heydrich reported that the Reich Marshal had appointed him delegate for the preparations for the final solution of the Jewish question in Europe and pointed out that this discussion had been called for the purpose of clarifying fundamental questions. The wish of the Reich Marshal to have a draft sent to him concerning organizational, factual and material interests [ ] makes necessary an initial common action of all central offices immediately concerned with these questions in order to bring their general activities into line. The Reichsf hrer-SS ( Reich Leader of the SS , Heinrich Himmler) and the Chief of the German Police (Chief of the Security Police and of the SD) was entrusted with the official central handling of the final solution of the Jewish question without regard to geographic borders. The Chief of the Security Police and the SD then gave a short report of the struggle which has been carried on thus far against this enemy, the essential points being the following: a. the expulsion of the Jews from every sphere of life of the German people; b. the expulsion of the Jews from the living space of the German people. In carrying out these efforts, an increased and planned acceleration of the emigration of the Jews from Reich territory was started, as the only possible present solution. [ ] All the offices realized the drawbacks of such enforced accelerated emigration. For the time being they had, however, tolerated it on account of the lack of other possible solutions of the problem. ACTIVITY 4.C After reading the Primary Source prepare a short oral summary of the text by using the 5 Wh-questions below as a guide. Who wrote the document and who was involved in the situation? When was the document written? Where was the document written? Why was it written? What does the document say? 28