Wannsee Conference Was About Holocaust Infrastruct

Administrative infrastructure for the “Holocaust by Gas” – the second (and twice as murderous in terms of the number of victims) stage of the whole diabolical (literally) “Holocaust Project”.

The "Holocaust by Bullets" was very simple – even primitive. Jews were rounded up (in ghetto or in town or village where they resided); brought (on foot or in trucks) to a giant pit, shot in the back (or in the back of the head) en masse – and buried.

No infrastructure was necessary – and the job was done by just one agency: Einsatzgruppen (SS/SD), police battalion (Wehrmacht/SS) or regular army unit (yes, Wehrmacht units also were involved in the “Holocaust by Bullets”).

“Holocaust by Gas” was committed by six death factories (Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz and Majdanek). Which required complicated and extensive physical and administrative infrastructure (supplies, logistics, etc.).

“Holocaust by Gas” (and thus the whole “Holocaust Project”) was the most horrific genocide (serial mass murder) because for the first (hopefully, the last) time in human history its perpetrators created a colossal comprehensive industrial infrastructure aimed at feeding victims to giant death factories – and subsequently disposing of their bodies (ultimately by incinerating them).

This infrastructure spread across the whole Third Reich (the F;hrerstaat) and thus the responsibility areas of all its key components: the Party (NSDAP); the military (Wehrmacht); central civilian government (Reich Chancellery and key ministries) Foreign Office and the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories.

And the Office of the Four-Year Plan, of course as the “Holocaust Project” consumed a lot of scant resources of the Reich and had (mostly highly negative) economic consequences for the country fighting the world war.

To support this physical infrastructure the managing agency of the “Holocaust Project” (SS/RSHA) had to secure cooperation of all of the above (not an easy job). Prior to the Wannsee Conference, Holocaust project manager Reinhard Heydrich secured cooperation and support from top officials of the above entities: Martin Bormann, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Hans Lammers, Hermann G;ring, Wilhelm Keitel and Joachim von Ribbentrop.

However, to put this infrastructure in place and make it work, Heydrich had to assemble the key functionaries of the abovementioned entities, assign specific tasks to them and coordinate these tasks under the auspices of SS/RSHA.

And that’s exactly what the Wannsee Conference was all about.