Editing Wannsee Conference (section)

== Background ==
Legalized discrimination against Jews in Germany began immediately after the [[Nazi seizure of power]] in January 1933. The ideology of [[Nazism]] brought together elements of antisemitism, [[racial hygiene]], and [[eugenics]] and combined them with [[pan-Germanism]] and territorial expansionism with the goal of obtaining more ''[[Lebensraum]]'' (living space) for the Germanic people.{{sfn|Evans|2008|p=7}} [[Nazi Germany]] attempted to obtain this new territory by invading Poland and the Soviet Union, intending to deport or exterminate the [[Jews]] and [[Slavs]] living there, who were viewed as being inferior to the [[Aryan race|Aryan]] [[master race]].{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=132}}

Discrimination against Jews, long-standing but extra-legal throughout much of Europe at the time, was codified in Germany immediately after the [[Machtergreifung|Nazi seizure of power]] on 30 January 1933. The [[Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service]], passed on 7 April of that year, excluded most Jews from the legal profession and the civil service. Similar legislation soon deprived other Jews of the [[Berufsverbot|right to practise their professions]].{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=38–39}} Violence and economic pressure were used by the regime to force Jews to leave the country.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=67–69}} Jewish businesses were denied access to markets, forbidden to advertise in newspapers, and deprived of access to government contracts. Citizens were harassed and subjected to violent attacks and boycotts of their businesses.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=41}}

[[File:Nuremberg laws Racial Chart.jpg|250px|thumb|left|1935 chart shows racial classifications under the Nuremberg Laws: German, ''[[Mischlinge]]'', and Jew.]]
In September 1935, the [[Nuremberg Laws]] were enacted, prohibiting marriages between Jews and people of Germanic extraction, [[Extramarital sex|extramarital sexual relations]] between Jews and Germans, and the employment of German women under the age of 45 as domestic servants in Jewish households.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|p=346}} The Citizenship Law stated that only those of German or related blood were defined as citizens; thus, Jews and other minority groups were stripped of their German citizenship.{{sfn|Evans|2005|p=544}} A supplementary decree issued in November defined as Jewish anyone with three Jewish grandparents, or two grandparents if the Jewish faith was followed.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|p=347}} By the start of World War II in Europe in 1939, around 250,000 of Germany's 437,000 Jews had immigrated to the United States, British [[Mandatory Palestine]], Great Britain, and other countries.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=127}}{{sfn|Evans|2005|p=555}}

After the [[invasion of Poland]] in September 1939, [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] ordered that the [[Intelligenzaktion|Polish leadership and intelligentsia be destroyed]].{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=144}} The ''[[Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen]]'' (Special Ledger of Wanted Persons–Poland){{efn|Robert Michael and Karen Doerr, authors of ''Nazi-Deutsch/Nazi German: An English Lexicon of the Language of the Third Reich'', translate the term ''Sonderfahndungsbuch'' to "Special Tracing Book".{{sfn|Michael|Doerr|2002|p=377}} }}—lists of people to be located so they could be interned or killed—had been drawn up by the SS as early as May 1939.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=144}} The ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]'' (special task forces) performed these murders with the support of the ''[[Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz]]'' (Germanic Self-Protection Group), a paramilitary group consisting of ethnic Germans living in Poland.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=144–145}} Members of the SS, the ''[[Wehrmacht]]'' (German Armed Forces), and the ''[[Ordnungspolizei]]'' (Order Police; Orpo) also shot civilians during the Polish campaign.{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=429}} Approximately 65,000 civilians were killed by the end of 1939. In addition to leaders of Polish society, they killed Jews, prostitutes, [[Romani people]], and the mentally ill.{{sfn|Evans|2008|p=15}}{{sfn|Longerich|2012|pp=430–432}}

On 31 July 1941, [[Hermann Göring]] gave written authorization to SS-''[[Obergruppenführer]]'' (Senior Group Leader) [[Reinhard Heydrich]], Chief of the [[Reich Security Main Office]] (RSHA), to prepare and submit a plan for a "total solution of the [[Jewish question]]" in territories under German control and to coordinate the participation of all involved government organisations.{{sfn|Browning|2007|p=315}} The resulting ''[[Generalplan Ost]]'' (General Plan for the East) called for deporting the population of occupied Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to Siberia, for use as slave labour or to be murdered.{{sfn|Snyder|2010|p=416}} The minutes of the Wannsee Conference estimated the Jewish population of the Soviet Union to be five million, including nearly three million in Ukraine.{{sfn|Roseman|2002|p=112}}

In addition to eliminating Jews, the Nazis also planned to reduce the population of the conquered territories by 30 million people through starvation in an action called the [[Hunger Plan]] devised by [[Herbert Backe]].{{sfn|Tooze|2006|pp=476–486, 538–549}} Food supplies would be diverted to the German army and German civilians. Cities would be razed and the land allowed to return to forest or resettled by German colonists.{{sfn|Snyder|2010|pp=162–163, 416}} The objective of the Hunger Plan was to inflict deliberate mass starvation on the [[Slavic peoples|Slavic]] civilian populations under German occupation by directing all food supplies to the German home population and the Wehrmacht on the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Eastern Front]].{{sfn|Tooze|2006|p=669}} According to the historian [[Timothy Snyder]], "4.2&nbsp;million Soviet citizens (largely Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians) were starved" by the Nazis (and the Nazi-controlled ''Wehrmacht'') in 1941–1944 as a result of Backe's plan.{{sfn|Snyder|2010|p=411}}{{sfn|Gerhard|2009}}

Harvests were poor in Germany in 1940 and 1941 and food supplies were short, as large numbers of forced labourers had been brought into the country to work in the armaments industry.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|p=539}} If these workers—as well as the German people—were to be adequately fed, there must be a sharp reduction in the number of "useless mouths", of whom the millions of Jews under German rule were, in the light of Nazi ideology, the most obvious example.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|pp=538–549}}

At the time of the Wannsee Conference, the killing of Jews in the Soviet Union had already been underway for some months. Right from the start of [[Operation Barbarossa]]—the invasion of the Soviet Union—''Einsatzgruppen'' were assigned to follow the army into the conquered areas and round up and kill Jews. In a letter dated 2 July 1941, Heydrich communicated to his SS and police leaders that the ''Einsatzgruppen'' were to execute [[Communist International|Comintern]] officials, ranking members of the Communist Party, extremist and radical Communist Party members, [[Council of People's Commissars|people's commissars]], and Jews in party and government posts.{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=523}} Open-ended instructions were given to execute "other radical elements (saboteurs, propagandists, snipers, assassins, agitators, etc.)".{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=523}} He instructed that any [[pogrom]]s spontaneously initiated by the occupants of the conquered territories were to be quietly encouraged.{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=523}} On 8 July, he announced that all Jews were to be regarded as partisans, and gave the order for all male Jews between the ages of 15 and 45 to be shot.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=198}} By August, the net had been widened to include women, children, and the elderly—the entire Jewish population.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=207}} By the time planning was underway for the Wannsee Conference, hundreds of thousands of Polish, Serbian, and Russian Jews had already been killed.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=309}} The initial plan was to implement ''Generalplan Ost'' after the conquest of the Soviet Union.{{sfn|Snyder|2010|p=416}}{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|p=683}} European Jews would be deported to occupied parts of Russia, where they would be [[Extermination through labour|worked to death]] in road-building projects.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=309}}