The Wannsee Conference: From Mass Shootings to Gas Chambers
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13m
20 January 1942, Berlin.
Fifteen senior Nazi officials — led by Reinhard Heydrich — gather at a villa in Wannsee to coordinate the “Final Solution.” Mass shootings by Einsatzgruppen had already killed hundreds of thousands across Eastern Europe, but the regime now sought a more systematic method of murder.
The conference marked a turning point — from executions in forests and ravines to extermination centers built for industrial killing. Ghettos overflowed. Deportations expanded. Gas vans operated at Chełmno, and camps like Bełżec, Sobibor, and Treblinka would soon function with deadly efficiency.
Behind bureaucratic terms like “evacuation” and “resettlement,” eleven million Jews were targeted. Gas chambers would replace bullets. Trains would replace firing squads.
The Wannsee Conference remains chilling proof that genocide was organized calmly, around a conference table.
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