The Wannsee Conference : Diplomacy Within Germany

Bethany Wong

Senior Division

Individual Website Category

 PROCESS PAPER
Over the summer, I started to volunteer at the Holocaust Museum. My experience as a
docent, providing tours, gave me a new point of view about that period of time. After I started
volunteering, I realized that I wanted to create a history fair that would reflect my experience at
the museum. When I learned that the theme was Debate and Diplomacy, I automatically
thought of the Evian Conference. When I contacted my mentors at the museum, however，
they suggested the Wannsee Conference. I remembered the importance of the Wannsee
Conference from my previous training to become a docent。 Since the Wannsee Conference
was the final planning stage of the Holocaust, I knew it would make an interesting topic。

For my research, I first contacted a mentor of mine who volunteers weekly at the
Holocaust Museum. With her help, I was able to borrow the most knowledgeable books from
the library in the museum. While reading, I took notes outlining the information and I wrote
down questions I had that were still unanswered. In search of educated experts, I then
contacted several universities, sending letters to professors across the country. Helpful
information came from history professors at Columbia University as well as at Rice University
and University of Texas and Texas A&M University. Some professors then directed me towards
even more literature and resources. I was able to interview several history professors
specializing in German history.

Reading through all the notes and interviews I had recorded, I was able to create a basic
outline of the information that was crucial in presenting the Wannsee Conference. I decided it
was important to stress the background of the time period and the events leading up to the
conference as well as the people who attended the meeting and the full consequences and
impact of the Wannsee Conference.

The previous summer, I had acted as an intern for a foodservice company, creating and
maintaining a website for the company. From this experience, I was already knowledgeable
about the technical aspects of creating a website. Because of my interest in graphic design and
webpage design, I decided to create an entry in the webpage division.

Relating the Wannsee Conference to diplomacy was difficult at first because diplomacy
is traditionally defined as a meeting between two foreign parties. At the Wannsee Conference,
only German officials were present. However, after talking to a professor from Texas A&M
University, I learned that prior to the Wannsee Conference the Nazi party was very fractured,
acting basically as separate entities. While headed under one name, it acted as separated
divisions. It was at the conference that the German government was able to unite and fully plan
the Final Solution. In that way, the Wannsee Conference was an event of diplomacy contained
within Germany.