At a meeting known as the Wannsee Conference, the German leadership coordinated the systematic murder of millions of Jews. Held in January 1942 in the town of Wannsee near Berlin, the conference was chaired by Reinhard Heydrich and attended by representatives of the German ministries that dealt with security concerns, racial matters, and the conquered territories. The participants were informed that Adolf Hitler had ordered “a Final Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe.” The mass murder of the European Jewish population, particularly in eastern Europe, had begun six months before. The delegates used the Wannsee conference to establish the systematic method by which the Jews could be most efficiently transported and murdered.
