Editing Reich Security Main Office (section)

===Wannsee Conference===
The [[Wannsee Conference]], held on January 20, 1942, in a villa in Berlin's affluent suburb of [[Wannsee]], was a pivotal meeting in the Nazi regime’s bureaucratic machinery of genocide, comprised by "representatives from the RSHA and state secretaries and other officials from the ministerial bureaucracy".{{sfn|Gerlach|2000|pp=110–111}} Convened by RSHA chief, Reinhard Heydrich, the meeting brought together fifteen high-ranking Nazi officials from various government organizations, including the Gestapo, SS, and the civil administration.{{sfn|Bergen|2009|pp=208–209}}{{efn|Even before the meeting was called, the RSHA had gathered data on the total number of Jews in Europe's various countries for long-term logistical planning purposes.{{sfn|Gerlach|2016|p=75}} }} Among the key topics of discussion was the fate of ''Mischlinge'' (people of mixed Jewish and non-Jewish descent) and Jews in mixed marriages. Some officials proposed sterilization, while others argued for direct deportation. The meeting lasted approximately 90 minutes, during which mass murder was spoken of in purely administrative terms, reflecting the dehumanizing efficiency of Nazi policy.{{sfn|Bergen|2009|pp=209–210}} Contrary to some misconceptions, the purpose of the conference was not to decide whether to exterminate Europe’s Jewish population—that decision had already been made—but to formalize the logistical and administrative details necessary to carry out the "Final Solution to the Jewish question."{{sfn|Bergen|2009|p=209}}{{efn|As early as July 31, 1941, Hermann Göring had already commissioned Heydrich “to make all the necessary preparations—organizational, technical, and material—for a total solution of the Jewish question throughout the German sphere of influence in Europe.”{{sfn|Gerlach|2000|p=117}} Former Gestapo office chief in Minsk, Georg Heuser, later testified that before the Wannsee Conference “only eastern Jews” were to be executed while German Jews were supposed to be resettled in the east. He stated that "after the Wannsee Conference, we were told that all Jews were to be liquidated".{{sfn|Gerlach|2000|p=111}} }}

In callous and detached language, Heydrich outlined plans to deport 11 million Jews from both occupied and neutral European countries to the East, where they would be subjected to forced labor under conditions designed to ensure mass death. Those who survived this process would be "treated accordingly," a euphemism for outright extermination in killing centers such as Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor.{{sfn|Echternkamp|2018|pp=105–106}} The Wannsee Protocol, the official record of the meeting according to the RSHA, later became crucial evidence in post-war trials, exposing the role of Nazi bureaucrats in the Holocaust. Historians avow that the conference remains a chilling example of how genocide can be facilitated not just by ideological fervor, but also through cold, technocratic planning by educated officials operating within a modern state apparatus.{{sfn|Roseman|2017|pp=21–23}}