Joseph Wulf - Wannsee Memorial

Wannsee Memorial

In 1965, Wulf proposed that the Wannsee House, site of the Wannsee Conference in 1942, should be made into a Holocaust memorial and document centre. But German government was not interested at that time. The building was in use as a school, and funding was not available. Despondent, Wulf committed suicide in 1974 by jumping from the fifth floor window of his Berlin apartment, Giesebrechtstraße 12, Charlottenburg. "I have published 18 books about the Third Reich and they have had no effect. You can document everything to death for the Germans. There is a democratic regime in Bonn. Yet the mass murderers walk around free, live in their little houses, and grow flowers," he said in his last letter to his son, David. On 20 January 1992, on the fiftieth anniversary of the conference, the site was finally opened as a Holocaust memorial and museum. In the dining room where the conference was held, photographs and biographies of the participants hang on the wall. The museum also hosts permanent exhibits of texts and photographs that document events of the Holocaust and its planning. The Joseph Wulf Bibliothek / Mediothek on the second floor houses a large collection of books on the Nazi era, plus other materials such as microfilms and original Nazi documents.