ABSTRACT
In popular culture the visual images associated with the Wannsee conference have become iconographic. Movies portray a stately lakeside villa, set against a snowy landscape. Nazi officials gather in a decadently furnished boardroom to calmly discuss what General Telford Taylor described as 'perhaps the most shameful document of modern history'. For decades, historians regarded the Wannsee conference as a central moment in the extermination of the Jews. While disagreements remain about the purpose of the meeting, Hannah Arendt is close to the mark in noting that organised mass-murder required the 'active cooperation of all Ministries and the whole of the civil service' and that the 'aim of the conference was to coordinate all efforts toward the implementation of the Final Solution'. Arendt's comments on the Wannsee conference are of enduring relevance for criminal lawyers and criminologists seeking to comprehend the nature of intention and criminal responsibility.
