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Where is the historical documentation that this meeting took place?


Can someone point out the source of the historical documentation that this meeting took place?

How do the Holocaust Revisionists explain this meeting or the transcript of it that was allegedly found?


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In the titles at the end of the film, which give summaries of what happened to the characters in real life following the war, there is a statement that a single copy of the minutes of the meeting had survived and had been found after the war in the belongings of one of the individuals (I don't recall which one for certain, think it was Martin Luther).

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Yes, it was Martin Luther. It's mentioned in the article on Wikipedia about the conference.

Copies of the minutes (known from the German word for "minutes" as the "Wannsee Protocol"[e]) were sent by Eichmann to all the participants after the meeting.[58] Most of these copies were destroyed at the end of the war as participants and other officials sought to cover their tracks. It was not until 1947 that Luther's copy (number 16 out of 30 copies prepared) was found by Robert Kempner, lead U.S. prosecutor before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, in files that had been seized from the German Foreign Office.

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Apart from the minutes: Eichman testified about the Wannsee Conference during his trial in Israel.


EDIT:

And here's all the original documents you'd ever need to conclude that the conference really took place.

http://www.ghwk.de/wannsee/dokumente-zur-wannsee-konferenz.html?lang=g b

including some of the invitations Heydrich sent out to the participants:

http://www.ghwk.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf-wannsee/dokumente/luther-einladung_januar1942_barrierefrei.pdf

In any case: As the movie pretty much pointed out, the conference really wasn't all that important anyway. The decision to exterminate the Jews had already been made at a much higher level (basically in Göring's authorization to Heydrich, which was the basis/mandate for the whole thing and which he even quotes in the movie).

These guys were more like middle/upper management, not top management. What Heydrich did was to ensure the cooperation of the various administrative bodies represented at the conference and to establish himself and the SS/SD as the ones calling the shots in these matters.


S.

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So if the meeting took place, then how does David Irving and the other Holocaust deniers explain it then? Has anyone asked him about it?


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I guess the real question would be how they explain tons and tons of pictures and films shot by allied troops after they liberated the camps which clearly show loads of corpses and malnourished prisoners on the brink of starvation.

Or the pictures of piles of shoes/glasses/etc. Or the involvement of German industry such as IG Farben who supplied the gas for the mass killings. There *is* a paper-trail for all that stuff.

Or the extremely strong hints that top-level Nazis (including Hitler himself) gave in public speeches? Or Himmler's infamous Posen-speech in which he openly acknowledges the mass-killings?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posen_speeches

Or the thousands and thousands of witnesses'/victims' testimonies. Were all these people lying?


I guess it's just like with every other conspiracy-nut - from the JFK-assassination to the moon-landing "hoax" to the 9/11-"theories": These guys are ignorant fools.


S.

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So if the meeting took place, then how does David Irving and the other Holocaust deniers explain it then? Has anyone asked him about it?

People like that will always find a way to make every fact fit their crazy theories. I guess they can easily either deny the veracity of the documents or just accept the meeting took place but say that the process was never implemented.

Anyone who denies these facts should meet face to face with a Holocaust survivor. I met several in my life and they were already old people. They had no reason to lie, they all came from different walks of life and were deported for various reasons ( French resistance fighters, Polish communists, one German gay gentleman who narrowly escaped with his life) and they were genuinely in shock when talking about it.

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[deleted]

Didn't read a single other comment posted have you.

You do know what "the minutes" are don't you?

If not go look them up.

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I read every single post here. What makes you think I didn't?

"The Minutes" were vague details about a meeting that was so unimportant, hardly anyone kept copies. Someone found one and decided to use that as ROCK SOLID evidence a meeting took place specifically about gassing Jews. And a screenwriter used it to spin a nice little drama about the meeting. But it's a stretch.

Even the Posen speech has challenges as to its legitimacy.

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http://www.ghwk.de/wannsee-conference/documents.html?lang=gb


And here's a translated version of the "vague" minutes:

http://www.ghwk.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf-wannsee/engl/protokol.pdf


Under appropriate direction the Jews are to be utilized for work in the
East in an expedient manner in the course of the final solution. In large
(labor) columns, with the sexes separated, Jews capable of work will be
moved into these areas as they build roads, during which a large
proportion will no doubt drop out through natural reduction.



both Gauleiter Dr. M e y e r and
Secretary of State Dr. B ü h l e r were of the opinion
that certain preparatory work for the final solution should be carried out locally in the area concerned, but that, in doing so, alarm among
the population must be avoided.


And again: The minutes aren't the only thing pointing to the nature of the conference and what was being discussed. Eichmann spoke about it during his trial in Israel and there are other accounts from first-hand witnesses.

Eichmann getting questioned about the conference during his trial:
http://www.ghwk.de/fileadmin/user_upload/mp-dateien/eichmann_zu_wannsee.mp3

The first relevant question is:

Q: Wannsee.. do you recall what was being discussed there?
A: They discussed various methods of carrying out the killings.

and

Q: you've stated earlier that there was talk about methods of killing during the part of the conference which was *not* covered in the minutes

A: Yes

Q: and who exactly talked about this?

A: I don't recall every single detail, but I clearly remember that everybody was standing/sitting around talking about it very openly. Unlike the words I had to use in the minutes, those present used very direct language, describing the facts as they were.

and further:
Eichmann: "There was talk of killing, eliminating, exterminating."



S.

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Hey, thanks for that PDF file, but I don't think it makes your case very well.

The way people seem to understand the Wannsee Conference is that the participants used the word "evacuate" as a euphemism for "exterminate." But the file presents details upon details on how exactly to actually EVACUATE the people, how many, where to, and with what qualifications. Besides our assumption that they simply MUST have been talking about extermination, those minutes prove nothing by themselves.

I called them "vague" because of that supposed euphemism. I was wrong. They're actually very, very detailed--about "emigration" of the Jews, not extermination.

The next proof is from Eichmann. But even people who defend the Holocaust against deniers have mentioned how unreliable Eichmann was. He was in hiding for ten years. He was captured and drugged to make him more compliant. He was held captive for one year. He was under the threat of execution. He was put on a show trial that lasted months by people with a vested interest in making the Holocaust a definitive and undeniable reality.

They went out of their way to make his story credible. Not everyone fell for it.

You also mentioned "first-hand witnesses." Who were those? Remember, I'm ONLY talking about the Wannsee Conference being used as proof that the Nazis planned to exterminate and not evacuate. What first-hand witness helped to prove that, besides the embattled, under-defended Eichmann?

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Under appropriate direction the Jews are to be utilized for work in the
East in an expedient manner in the course of the final solution. In large
(labor) columns, with the sexes separated, Jews capable of work will be
moved into these areas as they build roads, during which a large
proportion will no doubt drop out through natural reduction.

The remnant that eventually remains will require suitable treatment;
because it will without doubt represent the most [physically] resistant part,
it consists of a natural selection that could, on its release, become the
germcell of a new Jewish revival. (Witness the experience of history.)


What is vague about this? The physically fit will be worked to death. The ones who are physically fit and who are not worked to death must be dealt with so that the Jewish race does not revive itself. What part of this suggests 'evacuation' is a benign concept to you?

You have also missed the point that 'evacuation' is being differentiated from 'emigration' and is the new policy referred to as 'The Final Solution of the Jewish Question'. There is recognition that the Russian War is not going to plan and that Poland cannot cope with 2.5 million Jews in ghettos. Where exactly do you think they intended to 'evacuate' 2.5 million people to?

Finally, the salient point is that this is one piece of corroborative evidence amongst many and so we know from the other pieces of evidence that the clumsy euphemisms and terse language actually refers to extermination rather than 'evacuation'.

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What is vague about this?


But isn't that the point of the Wannsee Conference minutes? That they use euphemisms instead of coming right out and saying "extermination"? If we're to believe that the Final Solution was about killing and that it was being discussed in this one meeting, we HAVE to agree that the words they used were deliberately vague or ambivalent or, according to Wikipedia, euphemistic.

Labor camps is something else. Working people until "natural reduction" gets rid of a few sounds like turnover at any wage-slave job. "Work the workers until some leave, quit or die. We don't care." But this is NOT an obvious plan for extermination, is it?

Where exactly do you think they intended to 'evacuate' 2.5 million people to?


Palestine? As intended? To populate the new country of Israel? Which is exactly what happened and wouldn't have happened without Nazi "assistance"...

...this is one piece of corroborative evidence amongst many...


So you agree this "one piece" doesn't hold by itself. This movie tries to say the Holocaust was being decided at the conference. Then we say this meeting wasn't all that important. Then we say they talked about killing Jews here. But we have to interpret the language to make it work. And in the end it's the official narrative of the Holocaust that proves the Wannsee Conference, when it should be the other way around.

We're using the "fact" of the Holocaust to prove the evidence.

That's not even considering that the details of these minutes were found in a copy of a copy found suddenly in someone's drawer just in time for the trials (and their predetermined outcomes)...

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The minutes were found after the first Nuremberg trial. Furthermore, it seems bizarre to be suspicious of the fact that evidence was found following the war during searches for evidence.

The minutes refer to taking Jews to 'the East' not Palestine, which was under British control. They also refer to Buehler stating that transport is not an issue in the General Government. You're just reaching blindly now. Buehler also states that out of the 2.5 million to be affected the majority are unfit for work. So, we can gather that he does not believe they are to be transported far from Krakow, Warsaw, Lodz, etc. and does not believe that they will be building roads. From that, certain inferences can be drawn.

Furthermore, Hoffmann states that persons 'of mixed blood' would rather 'sterilization' than 'evacuation' - this suggests that 'evacuation' (in addition to being different from forced emigration) is worse than forced sterilization.

You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how evidence works. There is a multitude of pieces of evidence for the holocaust and that evidence helps to explain the thinly-veiled euphemisms. You seem to have decided that you wish to ignore evidence which can be easier interpreted by considering it alongside other evidence, but this doesn't actually follow logic. Inferences can always be drawn about the meaning and intention of statements based upon what happened before or after. If I say "I could kill you for being such an idiot" and then you are murdered, people might be less inclined to think I was using a hyperbole.

It should also be noted that the film does not say that the holocaust was being decided at the conference. They acknowledge that Einsatzgruppen shootings were already taking place, camps were already under construction and people were already being gassed. You may wish to deny these things happened as well, but that would suggest you are a loonball.

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I'm still not convinced.

Why is it "bizarre" to be suspicious of the discovery of a very convenient document that helps convict people during their trial? Why is it illogical to examine one piece of evidence by itself, measure its own worth, without the influence and the confirmation bias that will come with other evidence? I already said i wanted to examine the Wannsee Conference by itself...

The deliberate vagueness of the word "evacuation" also bothers me, since "expulsion" and "emigration" were being done at the time. This isn't the first time Jews were being "expelled" from an area either. It seems too easy to just assume "evacuation" must have meant "extermination," especially since, by itself, it doesn't hold up. It needs the greater context of the entire Holocaust to give it any importance.

And about the Mischling facing sterilization or evacuation...You just stated that because they would rather choose sterilization, it must naturally mean that the alternative was extermination? Exactly how many "inferences" and assumptions did we go through before the narrative of the Holocaust was created?

I'm not trying to absolve the Nazis of wrong-doing either. Shootings? Sure. Mistreating the Jews? Absolutely. But I'm free to wonder about the rest.

It should also be noted that the film does not say that the holocaust was being decided at the conference.


But people DO believe this. I've seen websites where they actually say the decision to exterminate was determined here. I think that assumption is allowed to spread.

Be honest. If one of the most dramatic, the most tense moment of the film, happens to be when they announce the plans for extermination and how big an operation it will be, don't you think viewers will come away with the idea that this meeting was when it was decided to murder the Jews?

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You have no basis for skepticism over the discovery of this document other than the fact it was used in trials and found in a search. Following your logic every piece of evidence ever found during an investigative search is suspect. Fair enough, if you have some basis other than "It was found to be useful at trial, and so it is therefore suspect evidence". Although as you'll note from the end of the film, it wasn't all that useful in any trials. Only the SS men and Buhler were executed or received significant convictions for crimes against humanity. Where does that fit with your manufactured evidence theory? (or whatever the hell your theory actually is - at the moment you just seem to have vague ponderings).

I also don't get your problem with the concept of the word evacuation as a camouflage term, and the fact it was being differentiated from expulsion or emigration. Do you deny that the Nazis used camouflage words for some of their greatest misdeeds? This was mainly done to help coerce the intended victims and to prevent any public outcry, by allowing those not being persecuted to turn a blind eye. Himmler was more frank later in the war about what was going on when speaking to party members - again this is a historical fact which only those with extremely suspect motives seek to deny.

Expulsion and forced emigration were not being carried out at the material time either, these policies had been reversed in favour of captivity and herding into ghettos. Jewish emigration was illegal by 1941. Many of those people who were held captive and herded into ghettos appear to have disappeared from the face of the Earth following well-documented ghetto liquidations. They certainly don't appear to have gone to Palestine, Madagascar or territories to the West or East of Poland.

You are "free to wonder about the rest" in the face of compelling evidence not limited to one document which is deliberately vague and uses common camouflage terms from the era. By limiting yourself to reviewing this one document and deciding to ignore relevant facts and to taking deliberately vague language at face value I'm free to accuse you of idiocy and agenda. Such is life.

People will not come to the conclusion that at this meeting the decision was taken to murder the Jews by watching the film. They will note that it is specifically stated that the decision has already been made and that the attendees are being presented with a fait accompli, with the more reluctant members being threatened and coerced. According to Eichmann's testimony not much coercion was required, and so some licence may have been taken to humanize the Nazis - particularly Lange, who does not appear to have had any problem carrying out mass shootings, but has been used to reflect the difficulties which many troops had with them. Such licence is necessary of course, as there is no verbatim transcript, however the film largely reflects respected historical opinion on the meeting. I'd say that the German film Die Wannseekonferenz is less dramatic in doing so, and provides fewer moral questions and less grandstanding, but both films follow the same general path.

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Do you deny that the Nazis used camouflage words for some of their greatest misdeeds?


Yes. They certainly had an anger towards the Jews and wanted them out of their country. But they talk openly about why they distrusted the Jews and how they wanted them out. Camouflage words seem rather unnecessary. We, on the other hand, with our post-war "knowledge" and assumptions, seem intent on changing the definitions of words like "evacuation" and "liquidation" and "rooting out".

You mentioned Himmler. If you're talking about the Posen speeches, then once again, we see words being redefined to fit the official Holocaust story. (And it's strange that in the middle of a speech threatening Nazis who steal from Jews with death, that he would add, "by the way, we're killing Jews en masse! Sieg heil!").

Many of those people who were held captive and herded into ghettos appear to have disappeared from the face of the Earth following well-documented ghetto liquidations. They certainly don't appear to have gone to Palestine, Madagascar or territories to the West or East of Poland.


"Appear to have"? So even you don't know. Whether or not those millions of people existed or not, you'll say they "appear to have" been killed because THAT's the official Holocaust story. Do you see how that very powerful and emotional narrative can be used to twist facts, fill in gaps, and reinterpret evidence?

The only way you can put stock in this Wannsee evidence is by accepting the larger context of the Holocaust and that's it. By themselves, the different bits of evidence--the gassing, the Posen speeches, the witness testimonies, the Allied propaganda, the tortured confessions, the Russian "rebuilding" of gas chambers--can fall apart. Under the glare of the larger-than-life Holocaust story, it's easier to gloss over details.

ignore relevant facts and to taking deliberately vague language at face value I'm free to accuse you of idiocy and agenda.


Do you think post-war investigators might've had an agenda themselves? I mean, the Allies vilifying the Germans, the Zionists building their state, the Jews who didn't like the deportations...

Such licence is necessary of course, as there is no verbatim transcript, however the film largely reflects respected historical opinion on the meeting.


"Respected historical opinion"... People with differing opinions have been met with ridicule, death threats, bombs to their offices, and jail time.

"Conspiracy" is a nice movie, but it does what you do. It takes the Holocaust story we've been fed since grade school, accepts all of it as fact, and rewrites a part of history under the context of those "facts."

By itself, though, those Wannsee Conference minutes don't prove much. But it was necessary, wasn't it? Every once in a while, something has to come along to "prove" the Holocaust...

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If the documents in question were indeed a fabrication, as you seem to suggest, why did their forgers use such a bland and euphemistic language, as you yourself describe it ? Would it have sprained their wrists to write eliminate instead of evacuate ?

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You're going to have help me out here a little. When did I suggest it was a "fabrication"?

Because I DON'T think it's a fabrication. I think it's a very bland report about evacuating a group of people and that people USED this report to suggest something a lot more sinister, genocidal and criminal.

They used evacuate because that's all they meant. OTHER PEOPLE take that word and suggest it must mean eliminate instead.

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You wrote :

the details of these minutes were found in a copy of a copy found suddenly in someone's drawer just in time for the trials (and their predetermined outcomes)...


a very convenient document that helps convict people during their trial


which is why I got the impression of you questioning the document's authenticity.

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Kudos to you for going back and forth with an Holocaust denier. You have excellent argument skills. (Must be a lawyer).

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Mathematician. The discipline closest to logic.

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The fact is that Allied interrogators did all kinds of horrible things to the Nazi prisoners to get signed confessions. The fact that there was only one copy found, makes me suspicious of whether it's real or not.

Even the film fabricates several aspects of this conference, including the efficiency of Auschwitz to gas 2,500 prisoners per hour. It never happened and could never happen with the lay out of that camp. They didn't even have large commercial ovens to do the job. All they had were small funeral home type of ovens that would take 3 hours to burn one body per hour.

Also, where did all the ashes go? Nothing was ever found. So yeah, a lot of this stuff is fiction. That doesn't mean a lot of people weren't killed.

Of course they were, but here's an easy way of killing a lot of people within a short period of time: Simply put them in a large open air camp without giving them food or water and in about a week, they're all dead. That's pretty much what Eisenhower did to disarmed German soldiers after the war was over.

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Obviously a holocaust denier. There is no evidence of allies doing horrible things to get confessions.

Just admit it. You don't believe there was a holocaust and are defending the Nazis.

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There seems to be a lot narrow-mindedness, naivete and willful ignorance needed to accept the Holocaust narrative with no room for doubt.

War is hell. Both sides did terrible things. Just because the winners don't advertise their own atrocities, we have to be naive enough to believe they did nothing?

Please at least look at this:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2223831/How-Britain-tortured-Nazi-PoWs-The-horrifying-interrogation-methods-belie-proud-boast-fought-clean-war.html

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The fact that there was only one copy found, makes me suspicious of whether it's real or not.


I would address to you the same question that I also asked Roma Victor earlier above: Why the use of hidden, euphemistic expressions, if it was indeed a fabrication, as you genuinely seem to believe ?

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Luther's minutes were found. They should have been destroyed but were not, perhaps because Luther was into internal intrigue (he was imprisoned for plotting against his superior, foreign minister Ribbentrop) but not so good at suppressing paper trails. There were also descriptions by meeting participants later, I believe including Eichmann at his trial in Israel. Much of what we see in this dramatisation is embroidery not based on the minutes, as the documentation is sparse, but the meeting certainly happened.

"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."

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"Simply put them in a large open air camp without giving them food or water and in about a week, they're all dead." A claim made by German neo-Nazis. (I saw it on a large sticker attached to a lamp post in Wuppertal, Germany.)
The fact that the German army did precisely that with Soviet POWs captured in large numbers in the summer and autumn of 1941 was one of the indictments at Nuremberg. Sometimes they asked if there were any Jews among them, and these were typically killed on the spot. This was months before the Wannsee conference.

"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."

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I'm sure the meeting did happen but what also else did happen was Hitler's instructions to Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger, Permanent Secretary of the Reich Chancellery, that there would be no plan for wholesale extermination of the Jews.

Keep in mind that up until June 1941, the Nazis had been working with the Palestinian authorities to deport European Jews to Palestine. When that process broke down due to the start of the invasion of the Soviet Union and the reluctance of the Palestinian authorities to allow more Jews into Palestine, the only plan left remaining was by incarceration, forced labor, and attrition due to wartime conditions.

As for Eichmann's testimony during his trial, you would be surprised what you can get someone to say when you threaten their lives and that of their families lives and flat out physical and mental torture.

David Irving's $1,000 or British Pound equivalent to anyone that can produce solid evidence that Hitler ever gave an extermination order remains outstanding.

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It's amazing how many Holocaust deniers are still out there. If even 1000 Jews were killed by Nazis, that would still be wrong. What right did Germans have to kick millions of Jewish Germans out of Germany in the first place? What right did they have to go through Europe to deport the Jewish citizens of those countries to concentration camps?

There is no denying the Holocaust as an historical fact. Not sure what you get out of doing so.

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Leaving aside Hitler's veracity on such a "When did you last beat Eva Braun?" question, Kritzinger must have thought it a serious possibility, otherwise why raise the matter?
And what Palestinian authorities? It was a British mandate and they were in a state of war with Germany.

"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."

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"Attrition due to wartime conditions". A nicely bureaucratic way, worthy of Wannsee, to say they were to be starved to death. In Nazi-occupied Poland, the official ration scale for Germans was over 2,000 calories a day (as they were supposedly the master race), for non-Jewish Poles approximately 800 (ie. malnutrition bordering on slow starvation) and approximately 200 for Jews (ie. starvation).

"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktion_T4

We do have a document in which Hitler signed off on Gnadentod ("merciful death") for the mentally impaired and terminally ill. This anticipated the Holocaust and gave a good deal of technical experience to its implementation. It might be worth comparing Nazi attitudes to T4 targets and the Jews. T4 targets were considered a burden on the public purse and in many cases a barrier to a "better" and "healthy" race, Nazi Germany not being the only country where eugenics was a popular motivation. But the Nazi propaganda machine did not regard them, as it did the Jews, as the root of all evil and an appalling danger to Germany. Yet we have a definite Hitler kill order for T4 targets.
It is all too likely there was one for the Jews. But it has either never been found, or it was transmitted orally, perhaps because Hitler preferred to cover himself.
Incidentally the T4 programme produced a certain amount of hostile reaction when word got out, not least from the Catholic Church, and was officially ended, although in fact it continued under a cloak of secrecy. Probably this influenced Hitler when it came to even larger massacres - use a cloak of secrecy, don't put it down on paper and move the doomed outside of Germany, rather than keep them in Germany where secrecy might be harder to maintain and outrage might be stirred.

"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."

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