On January 20, 1942, an event took place in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee, which became a turning point in the policy of the Nazis towards European Jews. During a two-hour meeting, 15 officials of the central agencies of the Third Reich discussed the issue of the division of functions between various ministries regarding the extermination of European Jews.

The Wannsee Conference was convened by Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Main Directorate of Imperial Security, in accordance with a letter from Hermann Göring dated July 31, 1941. This letter tasked Heydrich with preparing a “final solution to the Jewish question.” Details of the Wannsee Conference became known from the protocol, which was drawn up by SS Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann, as well as from post-war interrogations of Nazi criminals.

Among the institutions represented were the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Gestapo, the SS, the Office for Race and Resettlement, and the Office responsible for the distribution of Jewish property. Also at the meeting was a representative of the General Governorship - the Polish occupation administration – on whose territory more than 2 million Jews lived. The participants of the meeting did not discuss whether to implement the plan for the total extermination of European Jews, but instead discussed the implementation of a political decision that had already been made at the highest level of the Nazi regime. At that time, Nazi government officials were already aware of actions to exterminate Jews in Nazi-occupied territories, the activities of Einsatz groups, etc. So, the conference had to specify the scope, stages and interaction of various departments during the “final solution of the Jewish question”.

The Nazi program was to begin with the “evacuation of the Jews to the East” (a veiled term for the deportation of Jews to extermination camps). This stage included the forced removal of 11 million European Jews, including those who lived in countries not occupied by Nazi Germany. Despite the euphemisms that appeared in the minutes of the meeting, the goal of the Wannsee Conference was clear to its participants: the further coordination of policies aimed at the complete physical destruction of European Jews.

The Wannsee Conference became a key event in the process of extermination of the Jews of Europe. It was from 1942 that the actions of the Nazi authorities became coordinated and organized, which eventually led to the extermination of 6 million European Jews.