Robin Oomkes visits the House of the Wannsee Conference… 

At the very edge of what used to be West Berlin, a narrow road winds its way along the shores of Lake Wannsee. Passing a seemingly interminable series of yacht clubs and retirement homes, the road arrives at the turn-of-the-century Villa Marlier. Half-hidden amongst towering pines and landscaped pathways, the sandy-coloured villa is marked at the entrance by a glass display featuring the first page of the minutes of one of the grisliest meetings ever held: the 1942 Wannsee Conference.

The SS purchased the peaceful-looking villa in 1940, initially to use as a conference centre and a guest house. At that time, the campaign to annihilate the country’s Jewish population had already intensified, shifting away from public demonstrations and exhortations to leave to the turning point of Kristallnacht on the 9th of November, 1938.

But although the Nazi leadership were agreed on eliminating Jews not just from Germany but also occupied Europe, they were not exactly clear on what should be done with them. Up until 1941, the idea of deporting all captured Jews to a remote place like Madagascar—but not necessarily kill them—was mooted, and there were also arguments about which agency should be in charge of what was euphemistically called “the Jewish problem”.

On the occasion of the infamous Wannsee Conference on the 20th January 1942, Reinhard Heydrich (Head of the Security Police and SD), booked the Wannsee house for a 90-minute meeting designed to confirm the primacy of the SS in orchestrating the mass-murder of European Jews. By getting representatives of all other involved government agencies to attend, Heydrich achieved the dual goal of asserting his leadership in this terrible project, as well as making the representatives of the other agencies complicit to the fact.

Entering the villa today through a modest anteroom, you reach a much grander central room that looks out onto the villa’s gardens and adjacent lake. A slightly old-fashione…