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Click on an image to see a larger, more detailed picture.
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| 1942: The "Final Solution" |
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pg. 301 |
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Wannsee, outside Berlin, was a beautiful location, and the leaders of the Third Reich met there frequently, most importantly for the infamous January 1942 conference. This photo shows some of the leaders of the Third Reich's immense police apparatus. From the left they are: Kurt Daluege, head of the Order Police; Karl Wolff, chief of Heinrich Himmler's personal staff; Himmler, head of the SS; Captain Bonin of the Order Police; Field Marshal Erhard Milch; SD chief Reinhard Heydrich, who was put in charge of implementing the "Final Solution"; and Friedrich Wilhelm Krüger, chief of police in the Generalgouvernement.
Photo: SYddeutscher Verlag Bilderdienst
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A stately mansion in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee, formerly the residence of a wealthy Jewish family, was expropriated by the Nazis. Once a site for lakeside summer gatherings, it hosted a meeting of senior government bureaucrats to plan the "Final Solution" to the "Jewish problem" on January 20, 1942. Chaired by Reinhard Heydrich, the meeting went so well that Heydrich downed a celebratory glass of cognac at its conclusion.
Photo: Ullstein Bilderdienst
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Cold and ruthless, Reinhard Heydrich earned the nickname "The Hangman." When he hosted the Wannsee Conference, he made sure his guests were comfortable by providing them with refreshments. He then opened with a speech that discussed the deportation of 11 million Jews--including those of England and Ireland--to the East, meaning instant death or extermination through work. Heydrich would be assassinated in the spring of 1942.
Photo: Hulton Getty Images
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January 12, 1942: The seeds of the postwar Nuremberg Trials are sown when China and nine European nations pass a resolution to try Axis leaders for war crimes "whether they have ordered them, perpetrated them or in any way participated in them."
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January 13, 1942: The first of 10,000 Jews selected by the Jewish Council of the Lódz (Poland) Ghetto report for labor.
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January 13, 1942: The governments-in-exile of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, Holland, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, and Yugoslavia condemn German atrocities against their citizens without specifically mentioning Jews. The British Foreign Office approves the declaration but doesn't mention Jews.
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January 14, 1942: The United States blacklists 1800 European companies, making it illegal for any American to continue or begin business transactions with them.
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Mid-January 1942: The first Jews are deported from Lódz, Poland, to the Chelmno extermination camp.
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| 1942: The "Final Solution" |
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pg. 301 |
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The Holocaust Chronicle
© 2009 Publications International, Ltd.
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