The complete story of the Wannsee Conference, the meeting that paved the way for the Holocaust.On 20 January 1942, fifteen men arrived for a meeting in a luxurious villa on the shores of the Wannsee in the far-western outskirts of Berlin. They came at the invitation of Reinhard Heydrich and were almost all high-ranking Nazi Party, government, and SS officials. The exquisite position by the lake, the imposing driveway up to the villa, culminating in a generously sized roundabout in front of the house, the expansive, carefully landscaped park, the generous suite of rooms that opened on to the park and the lake, the three-level terrace that stretched the entire garden side of the house, and the winter garden with its marble fountain, all give today''s visitor to the villa a good idea of its owner''s aspiration to build a sophisticated, almost palatial structure as a testament to his cultivation and worldly success. But the beauty of the situation stood in stark contrast to the purpose of
