Wannsee Conference in 100 Facts

[RolandVT]

Contrary to a claim made in the 2001 movie Conspiracy (alas, full of historical inaccuracies), Wannsee House was NEVER owned by a Jew. Author of the script for the movie probably confused Villa Marlier/Minoux with the Liebermann Villa located just 400m from Wannsee House.

Liebermann Villa belonged to Jewish artist Max Liebermann – German painter and printmaker, and one of the leading proponents of Impressionism in Germany and continental Europe. In addition to his activity as an artist, he was an avid art collector – he assembled a sizeable collection of French Impressionist works.

In reality, had three owners – and all of them were Germans and diehard National-Socialists. And two of them were major swindlers. Crooks. Frauds. Con artists. Wannsee House was built in 1914 by Ernst Ferdinand Emil Marlier – German pharmaceutical manufacturer (and a con artist).

Marlier engaged architect Paul Baumgarten (later a favorite architect of Adolf Hitler) to build a magnificent villa, overlooking the Großer Wannsee lake, in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee. The villa was built in a few months… however, by that time Herr Marlier was up to his ears in business, financial and legal trouble.

In 1905, the Pharmaceutical Institute of Berlin determined that Marlier’s medicines consisted of nothing more than tartaric acid, citric acid, sodium chloride, and egg yolk and thus were essentially placebos. In 1907, the German government forbade the sale of Marlier’s flagship drugs Antipositin and Antineurasthin.

By 1907, Marlier was already having problems with police headquarters, which warned that Marlier’s preparations “did not have the properties ascribed to them in their sales information”. He conned his buyers – cut and dry, plain and simple.

He managed to cling to his villa for almost seven years but in 1921 was finally forced to sell the Wannsee Villa to industrialist Friedrich Minoux for 2,300,000 reichsmarks (an astronomical sum at that time). Some kind of karma was probably involved because the buyer was later exposed as another con artist whose cons far exceeded those of the seller.

Friedrich Minoux accumulated his “start-up capital” by working for Hugo Stinnes – an industrialist and politician who was considered to be one of the most influential business leaders in Europe (and possibly in the whole world).

Minoux achieved considerable financial success working for Stinnes, at one point earning as much as 350,000 gold marks per year — an enormous sum at the time. Then he started his own business ventures and in 1919 became a member of the board of the United Citizens of Berlin Coal Dealers AG, and began to diversify his business interests to paper production, automobile manufacturing and coal and steel production.

In 1923 Minoux left the Stinnes conglomerate completely to build his own industrial empire. In 1926 he acquired half of the shares of the German-Romanian Petroleum Company AG (Derupag).

His main source of income at the time became The Friedrich Minoux Society for Trade and Industry, which was a coal wholesale business (that’s how he met Marlier who also had business interests in coal).

Minoux opposed the Weimar Republic and maintained contacts with right-wing extremists, military federations, and politicians. He allegedly financed NSDAP since at least 1923 and through the Nazi connections became notable figures in German political and social circles after Hitler came to power.

He was no stranger to financial crime – in 1938, in his last major business deal, Minoux purchased the Jewish-owned Offenheimer Cellulose and Paper Works company for less than 1 million Reichsmarks.

The actual value was more than RM12 million, but by that time Nazi actions against Jewish businesses had intensified, and the owner of the mill was forced to sell to Minoux for a pittance.

Ultimately, he fell victim to his gargantuan greed. In August 1941 he was convicted of defrauding the Berlin Gasworks. At the time this was considered the largest business swindle of the Nazi era.

He was sentenced to five years imprisonment and hefty fines. From his jail cell in Berlin, Minoux sold (was forced to sell, actually) the Wannsee House to Stiftung Nordhav – essentially a real estate investment fund owned by the SS, established by Heinrich Himmler and managed by Reinhard Heydrich.

Its board of directors included such prominent SS leaders as Werner Best, Walther Schellenberg and the mentor of the latter Herbert Mehlhorn who was up to his ears in the “Holocaust Project” – he was one of the key operators of Chelmno killing center.

The foundation’s purpose was to obtain real estate to be used as rest and recreation centers for top SS officials (first and foremost, those of RSHA) and their families. Hence, it is no surprise that Heydrich chose it as the site for Wannsee Conference.

Minoux died of starvation a few months after the Allies liberated him from Brandenburg prison in 1945. He was buried in an unmarked grave in Wannsee.

[RolandVT]

Not specifically about the Holocaust; although it (inevitably) dealt with “Holocaust by Gas” – serial mass murder of Jews in six killing centers (death factories): Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor, Treblinka and Majdanek.

WVHA Trial (also known as Pohl Trial and officially as The United States of America vs. Oswald Pohl, et al.) was the fourth of the thirteen trials for war crimes that the United States authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany in Nuremberg after the end of World War II. It was held in 1947-48 – just as all other such trials.

WVHA (SS-WVHA, to be more precise) stands for SS-Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt (SS Main Economic and Administrative Office). Contrary to the common misconception, the actual serial mass murder of Jews was committed by personnel of WVHA, not RSHA. Who were working for Oswald Pohl (hence the name of the trial), not Reinhard Heydrich – or Ernst Kaltenbrunner.

WVHA built and operated all killing centers – including both actual killing and using slave labor of prisoners deemed useful for war effort (including Extermination through Labor – an important part of the “Holocaust Project”).

WVHA worked with Walther Funk, Reich Minister of Economics, to oversee financial aspects of the Final Solution. Valuables such as gold watches, rings, even tooth fillings, glasses, and currency were taken from the inmates on arrival at the death camps. These items were then sent back to Berlin in WVHA-marked crates for processing at the Reichsbank.

There were three key charges: (1) participating in a common plan or conspiracy to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity; (2) war crimes through the administration of concentration camps and extermination camps, and (3) mass murders and atrocities committed there and crimes against humanity on the same grounds, including slave labor charges. There was no separate charge of committing the genocide of Jews (no surprise here).

All defendants were charged on all counts of the indictment and all plead not guilty. Charge 1 (conspiracy) was largely disregarded by the tribunal and no judgments on this count were passed. Which was probably correct – the defendants were not conspiring – they just followed the criminal orders of their superiors who did.

Out of 18 defendants three were acquitted; four people (including Oswald Pohl), were sentenced to death by hanging. The others received sentences of imprisonment between 10 years and lifetime. However, only Pohl was executed; all others served 20 years at most (mostly 6 to 10 years).

[RolandVT]

Why? Because history of State of Israel after its Declaration of Independence proved beyond the reasonable doubt that its existence means war. Perpetual war between Arabs and Jews in oil-rich region which no one wants.

True, there was a so-called “Balfour Declaration” but, in reality, was NOT an official declaration issued by British government. The declaration was contained in a letter dated November 2, 1917 from the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland.

The text of the declaration was made public on November 9 1917… and it was little more than declaration of intent. Which in most cases leads nowhere. Arthur Balfour, a cautious diplomat, used intentionally vague term “establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” instead of a “Jewish state”. Which meant that the British government did NOT officially commit to the latter.

Contrary to some views, Britain had sufficient power to stay in Palestine… forever and to brutally suppress any insurgency – Jewish or Arab. Which it did in pre-war years… but after the Shoah preventing the Jews from establishing (restoring, actually – after 1,800 years) their state in Palestine was politically impossible.

Hence, Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich and (to an extent) Göring can be rightfully considered “fathers of the State of Israel”. Highly unwilling fathers as Nazis always opposed the establishment of independent Jewish state, but fathers nevertheless.

So, in February 1947, the British referred the Palestine issue to the newly formed United Nations. On May 15, 1947, the UN General Assembly resolved that a Special Committee be created to prepare a report on the question of Palestine.

The Report of the Committee proposed a plan to replace the British Mandate with an independent Arab State, an independent Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem, the last to be under an International Trusteeship System. It was not to be – although UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 (II) – with the plan attached to the resolution essentially that proposed in the report.

On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, declared “the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel“. The following day, the armies of four Arab countries – Egypt, Syria, Transjordan and Iraq – attacked Jewish territories, launching the 1948 Arab–Israeli War… which Arabs decidedly lost.

But they continued fighting – and continue to the present day. And the independent Arab state is not even on the horizon…

[RolandVT]

Few are aware of the true historical fact that in the fall of 1945 there was a Jewish plot to murder six million civilians and military personnel. Germans (mostly) but also Allied soldiers.

No, it was not a “global Jewish conspiracy” by non-existent “Elders of Zion”; it was a criminal conspiracy to commit a serial mass murder (by poisoning water supply of four major German cities (Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich, and Nuremberg) by about fifty Jewish fanatics – members of Nakam (Revenge) death squad.

Following the misinterpreted Old Testament commandment (“eye for an eye”), they did not realize that it made them no better than the Nazis who committed the genocide of the Jews.

Actually, it made them worse – because the Nazis sincerely (though incorrectly) believed that they absolutely had to kill all the Jews to win the existential war with the “Jewish race” (and thus to save their men, women, children and the elderly).

Nakam intended to kill six million totally innocent human beings (including inevitably the liberators of Europe from the Nazis) for nothing other then to satisfy their desire for revenge.

They managed to infiltrate the water supply system of all abovementioned cities and even (allegedly) to obtain the poison… but their plan failed. No one knows for sure why… most likely, Jewish leader learned about the plan and were horrified.

Horrified because after mass murder of such magnitude committed by the Jews the latter would have been exterminated world wide to the last individual, finishing the job that the Nazis started in 1941.

Jewish leaders informed the British; the latter arrested Abba Kovner (leader of the death squad) was arrested… and it was the end of Plan A. Plan B was far smaller… and also unsuccessful.

In April 1946, members of Nakam broke into a bakery used to supply bread for the Langwasser internment camp near Nuremberg, where many German POWs were being held (should I mention that they had nothing to do with Shoah whatsoever?)

Nakam members coated many of the loaves with arsenic but were disturbed and fled before finishing their work. More than 2,200 of the German prisoners fell ill and 207 were hospitalized, but (thankfully) no deaths were reported.

The only difference between Nakam and the SS is that the latter are considered thugs in their nation – and the former are lauded as heroes in the State of Israel.

[RolandVT]

Right after the conclusion of Wannsee Conference, Reinhard Heydrich allegedly told his closest associates that he wanted to start moving the Jews to gas chambers in days, not weeks.

Reality turned out to be different – depending on how broadly you define Aktion Reinhard. According to a narrow definition, Aktion Reinhard (aimed at total extermination of Jewish population) was geographically limited to the General Government district of German-occupied Poland.

This narrowly defined operation commenced in March of 1942 (weeks after the Wannsee Conference) and was subsequently named after Reinhard Heydrich who was attacked by British commandos on May 27, 1942 and was essentially killed by Himmler’s personal physician a week later.

During the operation, as many as two million Polish Jews were sent to Belzec, Sobibór, and Treblinka killing centers to be murdered in purpose-built gas chambers using exhaust fumes of diesel engines (of captured Soviet T-34 tanks).

According to broader (IMHO, correct) definition, the operation was under way to murder all Jewish population of all occupied Poland – including areas annexed back into the Reich (after they were stolen by Versailles criminals).

In this case, one must add Chelmno death factory (which became operational weeks before the Wannsee Conference) to abovementioned list.

Narrowly defined Aktion Reinhard proceeded from March 1942 to November 1943; about 1.47 million or more Jews were murdered in just 100 days from late July to early November 1942, a rate which is approximately 83% higher than the estimated kill rate in the Rwandan genocide.

From July to October 1942, the overall death toll, including all killings of Jews and not just Operation Reinhard (first and foremost, in Chelmno killing center), amounted to two million killed in those four months alone. It was the single fastest rate of genocidal killing in history.

Aktion Reinhard (in both definition) was made possible only with the participation of all key SS agencies (RSHA, WVHA, etc.) and all key organizations of the Third Reich – NSDAP, Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, General Government in Poland, Office of a Four-Year Plan, Reich Chancellery and Ministry of the Interior (with the approval from Ministry of Justice).

This diabolical joint venture was the intended result – and one of the objectives – of Wannsee Conference.

[RolandVT]

SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (WVHA – created on February 1, 1942 – right after Wannsee Conference) is far less known than Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) and WVHA CEO Oswald Pohl – than RSHA boss Reinhard Heydrich.

In reality, WVHA (which executed the “Holocaust by Gas” and “Extermination through Labor” projects) was far more murderous than RSHA that was responsible for “Holocaust by Bullets” (the former accounted for 78% of Holocaust victims).

Also, WVHA was a far, far bigger monster; in fact, “a state within a state within a state” because it managed the finances, supply systems and business and construction projects of the SS.

WVHA ran all concentration (labor) camps of the SS and thus (via the supply of vital slave labor) essentially controlled the whole German wartime economy. After absorbing Concentration Camps Inspectorate and SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS Camp Guards), WVHA became the lead agency in implementing the “Holocaust by Gas” – the key component of the “final solution to the Jewish question”.

WVHA became a “one-stop-shop” for the “Holocaust by Gas”: it built and operated death factories (Chelmno, Belzec, Treblinka and Sobibor) and killing centers at labor camps (Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek); utilized Jewish slave labor to the maximum extent possible (via “Extermination through Labor”) – and filled German financial coffers with valuables stolen from murdered Jews.

WVHA boss Oswald Pohl (who got well-deserved noose in Nuremberg in 1951) worked with Walther Funk, Reich Minister of Economics on “financial aspects of the Holocaust”. Grand theft on a colossal scale, to put it mildly.

Valuables such as gold watches, coins, rings, even tooth fillings, glasses, and currency were taken from the inmates on arrival at the death camps. Even after death, their corpses were carefully examined for any concealed items such as gold or jewelry as well as gold teeth, which had to be removed forcibly before being passed on to the Reichsbank.

These items were then sent to Berlin in WVHA-marked crates for processing at the Reichsbank, under its director Emil Puhl. The latter got essentially a “slap on the wrist” – at the “Ministries Trial”, one of the last of the twelve Nuremberg trials held in 1948-49, he was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to… just five years in jail.

He was released several months early due to good behavior. It is especially strange because Reichsminister of Economics Walther Funk (who was guilty essentially of the same crimes) got life in prison and served 12 years.

[RolandVT]

This is my professional creed… of sorts – professional because by writing this book, I position myself as a professional historian.

First of all, I have nothing but deepest respect for and admiration of Jewish people. History proved beyond the reasonable doubt that Jews made the highest contribution to human progress than any other nation – both in absolute terms and on a per capita basis.

In business, economy, music, science, technology, arts, etc. – but, first and foremost, in religion (the latter is of the highest importance to me because I am Roman Catholic).

It is common knowledge that Western Civilization – and thus the whole human civilization – stands on three pillars: Athens, Romans and Jerusalem. On Greek culture, Roman law and Jewish-Christian religion. And because the latter is the most important (as it deals with Eternity), Jerusalem (and thus the Jewish people) are the “first among the equals”.

Likewise, I have nothing but deepest respect for and admiration of the State of Israel. Jewish people managed to perform a genuine miracle – they created a highly successful state (in all aspects) and a genuine democracy in an incredibly hostile environment (often not that much different from a Nazi state).

Antisemitism (Judeophobia) of any kind – especially a violent one – is a despicable crime that must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and ultimately eradicated completely (the sooner – the better). Eradicated mostly through education as it has but one root – ignorance.

Contrary to a popular misconception, you can be either a Christian (of any denomination) or an anti-Semite, but not both. Why? Because Our Lord and savior Jesus Christ was Jewish (when He walked the Earth in human form).

Her Majesty Blessed Virgin Mary was Jewish (ditto). All 12 apostles – the initial disciples of Jesus Christ – were Jewish. The de-facto founders of Christian church – Saint Peter and Saint Paul – were Jewish. Both Old and New Testament were written almost exclusively by the Jews. The list goes on, and on, and on.

However, all this does not preclude me from being totally impartial and unbiased in my writing (I have not a drop of neither Jewish nor German blood in my veins which helps a lot).

To me as a professional systems analyst and knowledge manager (by training as well as by experience “in the previous life”), history is all about studying prominent individuals (actors), events and organizations.

An individual must be “profiled” which for every Nazi means criminal profiling – as all Nazis were criminals and Nazi regime was fundamentally criminal (sometimes according to its own laws).

As for events, the science of history must provide the answers to fundamental questions “who did what when where how and why”. What were the intentions, objectives and plans – and what was the actual outcome (and if it was different from the intended one – happens all the time – then why).

As for organizations (i.e., SS, RSHA, WVHA, etc.) they must be analyzed using modern systems analysis tools (object-, process- and project-oriented). Just like corporate finance analyst in an investment bank would analyze Google or Amazon.

Finally, genuine history is not propaganda (that’s why there are so few genuine historians). Genuine historian only mines knowledge from available data and information (these are two very different things) and subsequently structures and disseminates this knowledge… and damn the consequences (of any kind).

A genuine historian is not concerned with any political or social objectives (let alone proverbial “political correctness”): his/her creed is “search for the truth, find the truth and share the truth”.

History is as much a science as physics; consequently, a genuine historian NEVER passes moral judgement (which is propaganda because everyone has his or her own moral code).

A genuine historian only passes a legal judgement (whether order or action in question) was criminal according to the laws of that time – and operational judgement (whether decision or action was the best under the circumstances).

[RolandVT]

In this book, both “Holocaust” and “Shoah” refer to genocide (serial mass murder) of the Jews committed by the Nazis. I will often use the term “Holocaust Project” to show that it was a murderous project.

“Holocaust by Gas” (which accounts for 78% of death toll) refers to extermination of Jews in six killing centers (death factories). They were not “camps” in a normal sense, so I do not use the term “death camp”.

“Holocaust by Bullets” refers to serial mass shooting of Jews in the Soviet Union (mostly) as well as in Yugoslavia and Romania (where it was the preferred method). I do not like the term “Nazis” (I prefer “National-Socialists”) but I will use the former for the sake of brevity.

[RolandVT]

Make no mistake, my key complaint about post-war trials of Nazi war criminals is that too few of them were ever tried – and of those who were, most got highly lenient sentences (and some just a “slap on the wrist”). Looks like Themis (Greek goddess of justice) got far too blind in those cases.

There were two primary reasons for this grandiose injustice. First, no one (even the Soviet leaders) cared about Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Poles or Jews (especially about the latter).

Second, all these trials were about politics – not justice (or even revenge). No one gave a rat’s ass (pardon my French) about justice – all everyone wanted was to protect a dirty grand secret of the Second Great War: all belligerents committed horrific war crimes.

Nazis poisoned and shot millions of Jews (and shots hundreds of thousands of Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, etc.); British and Americans deliberately burned alive hundreds of thousands of German civilians (Americans also of Japanese civilians); the Soviets murdered tens of thousands of Poles (in Katyn forest and elsewhere), raped close to two million German women of all ages…

But the most horrific dirty grand secret was one of the criminal decisions of (in)famous Potsdam conference: to cleanse Eastern Europe of German civilians who committed no crime at all – just because they were Germans.

About 15 million were brutally deported to Germany and up to two million were savagely murdered (in a far worse way than by a bullet or by gas). Right during the (in)famous Nuremberg IMT trial a genuine “German Holocaust” (one half of Shoah) was being committed.

Claiming that the Allies (British and American) who burned alive 400,000 German civilians were somehow “better” than the Nazis who killed 4 million Jews is like saying that Jack the Ripper (who killed five) is somehow “better” than Gary Ridgeway who murdered fifty.

In reality, in the eyes of a criminal justice system, they are equal: both would get death penalty (where it is on the books) or life in prison without the possibility of parole (where it is not).

The unfortunate consequence of this dirty grand secret is that one can not completely trust any of the documents produced by any war crimes trial (especially in the Soviet Union or in Eastern Europe). Every “authentic” document and every statement – of the defendant or witness – is suspect and must be double-checked.

[RolandVT]

The Belzec trial (Belzec-Prozess), which lasted from August 1963 to January 1965, was a war crimes trial of eight former SS members of Belzec extermination camp. However, it was about much more than Belzec, because five of the eight were defendants also in the Sobibor trial, which followed the Belzec trial.

Belzec and Sobibor trials, along with the Treblinka trials, obviously form a body of evidence of the crimes of mass extermination as part of Aktion Reinhardt – serial mass murder of over two million Jews and 50,000 Roma and Sinti (the latter is rightfully considered as one of the “forgotten genocides”).

In addition, Belzec trial and other abovementioned trials are directly related to serial mass murder of about 100,000 mentally ill in the Aktion T4 program of forced euthanasia in 1939-41. Directly related because many of the security guards worked in the killing centers of Aktion T4 before transferring to death factories of the “final solution to the Jewish question”.

The outcome of the trial was shocking, to put it mildly. Six out of seven defendants were acquitted and one – Josef Oberhauser – was sentenced to just 4.5 years hard labor (!!) and loss of the citizen’s rights for three years.

As is common in German criminal justice system, he was released after serving half of his sentence. Oberhauser was sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia for his crimes committed in Italy, but the Italian extradition request failed. Oberhauser died on 22 November 1979 in Munich. He was 64.

Belzec trial – as well as many others – are perfect examples of how difficult (to put it mildly), it was to convict anyone of Nazi war crimes in West Germany. The primary reason was the (correct) decision by the federal government that no special law would be introduced to deal with Nazi crimes, but that they would be dealt with under “normal” criminal law.

The latter is so serious about presumption of innocence and the rights of the defendant (rightfully so, given the Nazi past) that it places a very high standards on both witnesses’ statements and the evidence.

Both in the war crimes cases were so… well, imperfect that proving the culpability of murder (issuing or executing the order to kill) of anyone was practically impossible. Hence, the prosecution could only hope for a conviction of accessory to murder and even that was impossible if the defense could prove that the defendant acted under duress – which usually was the case.