Which Berlin villa hosted the Wannsee Conference on 20 January 1942?

Villa Marlier in Berlin hosted the Wannsee Conference on 20 January 1942.

The lakeside villa stood at 56–58 Am Großen Wannsee and had been built in 1914–1915 for the industrialist Ernst Marlier. The SS acquired the property in 1940, and it became a meeting place for senior Nazi officials. Reinhard Heydrich chaired the conference, while Adolf Eichmann prepared the meeting’s administrative materials.

The conference did not begin the Holocaust, which was already underway through shootings, ghettos, deportations, and killings at extermination sites. Instead, its purpose was to coordinate the bureaucratic implementation of the Nazi regime’s planned murder of Europe’s Jews.

A common mistake is to call the building simply “Wannsee.” Wannsee is the Berlin district and lake area; Villa Marlier is the specific building. The site is now a memorial and educational center.