The Wansee Conference took place outside Berlin on January 20, 1942. The conference was organized by Reinhard Heydrich, and the main agenda item was the "Final Solution of the Jewish Problem."The attendees represented the Foreign Office, Justice Ministry, Interior Ministry, and the SS and included: Otto Hoffman, Heinrich Muller, Dr. Karl Schongarth, Dr. Gerhard Klopfer, Adolf Eichmann, Dr. Rudolf Lange, Dr. George Leibbrandt, Dr. Alfred Meyer, Dr. Josef Buhler, Dr. Roland Freisler, Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart, Erich Neumann, Friedrich Kritzinger, and Martin Luther.

Heydrich opened the meeting by providing an overview of the number of Jews in Europe, which he estimated at 11 million. He divided them into two groups: those already under direct German control and those who were not yet.

Heydrich stated, "In the course of the final solution, the Jews should be brought under appropriate direction in a suitable manner to the East for labor utilization. Separated by sex, the Jews capable of work will be led into these areas in large labor columns to build roads, whereby a large part will fall away through natural reduction. In the course of the practical implementation of the final solution, Europe will be combed from west to east... If only because of the apartment shortage and other socio-political necessities, the Reich area—including the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia—will be placed ahead of the line. For the moment, the evacuated Jews will be brought bit by bit to so-called transit ghettos."

The minutes of the meeting do not specifically mention how the Jews were to be eliminated, only that various methods were discussed.

Ten days later, Adolf Hitler spoke at the Sports Palace in Berlin, stating, "The war will not end as the Jews imagine it will, namely with the uprooting of the Aryan race, but the result of the war will be thecomplete annihilation of the Jews.Now, for the first time, they will not bleed other people to death, but for the first time, the old Jewish law of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, will be applied. And world Jewry may as well know this: the further these battles spread, the more anti-Semitism will spread. It will find nourishment in every prison camp and in every family when it discovers the ultimate reason for the sacrifices it has to make. And the hour will come when the most evil universal enemy of all time will be finished, at least for a thousand years."