On January 20, a meeting took place in a villa in Wannsee, on the outskirts of Berlin, to discuss the measures and inter-ministerial co-ordination needed to implement the "Final Solution" of the Jewish problem. The meeting was held at the initiative of Reinhard Heydrich, who, as Himmler's deputy and the head of the RSHA, had been authorised by Hermann Goering to elaborate a program that would solve the Jewish problem totally. Heydrich summoned the directors of the main government agencies that would have to co-operate for the plan to succeed. The goal of the meeting was not to discuss a decision to solve the Jewish problem by murdering all the Jews, but only to consider ways of implementing a decision already made.
The meeting was originally scheduled for December 9, 1941, but did not take place until January 20, 1942. It was attended by the State Secretaries of the most important German government ministries. Including the highest-ranking representatives of the Interior Ministry of the General Government, the Foreign Office, the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, the Ministry of Justice, the Reich Chancellery, the Four-Year-Plan Office, several leading officials in the SS Race and Resettlement Main Office, the commander of Einsatzgruppe A, the director of the Party chancellery office, Heydrich, and his Jewish affairs expert, Adolf Eichmann.
Heydrich began the meeting with a lengthy speech. Because most of the participants were directly or indirectly involved in the mass murders that were already underway, he did not need to relate to a matter that was unfamiliar to the participants. Heydrich's plan targeted all 11 million Jews in Europe as by Nazi definition and statistics. He would exploit the Jewish masses for road building and subject those who survived this gruelling labour to "special treatment" - murder.
In the last portion of his speech, Heydrich addressed himself to several special problems, foremost the fate of Jews who had married Aryans, and their offspring. The conference participants did not resolve these questions.
The directors of the government offices presented no obstacles; the meeting lasted only 60-90 minutes.
