January 20th was the 80th anniversary of the notorious Wannsee conference held by Nazi officials in which they planned extermination of 11 million European Jews with cool countenance. The matter-of-fact “Minutes of Meeting” (MoM), written in a typical bureaucratic style, over 15 typed pages, meticulously recorded the imminent plan of systematic execution of Jews across Europe.

Organized in the majestic villa by Lake Wannsee in western Berlin, 15-high ranking officials took just 90 minutes to draw up plans of “final solution” that would annihilate Jews from the continent. Those bureaucrats were young, well-educated and ambitious; half of them had doctoral degrees. The language and style of planning of the genocide in the MoM still sends chill through the spine.

The MoM was among those few surviving documents among countless others that Nazi officials destroyed in the last days of World War II.

19 years later, Adolf Eichmann, one of the leading officials present in the meeting, openly confessed about discussions of “different methods of killing” at Wannsee. He was recounting the event during his death trial in Jerusalem in 1961.

Now 80 years later, the document seems extremely relevant and should serve as a warning to billions of citizens in countries governed by authoritarians. It shows that not just a stray head of state, like Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini, – who often appear as nationalist saviours of the masses, in the beginning – a whole lot of bureaucrats, business heads and other cronies help plan the agenda of hate and genocide. Even sections of young and the educated fall in line, to fulfill their personal ambition.

Unless ordinary citizens stand up together – majority of contemporary Germans didn't do so – there’s no way to stop genocides, or worse crime against humanity. Silence is complicity; hate mongers across the world must be recognized and stopped early on tracks, before it's too late.

READ MORE: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/world/europe/lake-wannsee-conference-final-solution-holocaust.html

https://www.dw.com/en/wannsee-conference-nazi-germany-formalized-final-solution/a-37197330

https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1942-1945/wannsee-conference