Wannsee’s 90 minutes

By David Bidussa*

When someone argues that democracy is a slow regime that does not decide, this still image comes to my mind. Wannsee, 20 January 1942 (80 years ago next Thursday): in 90 minutes – the duration of a football match, excluding extra time – thirteen Nazis hierarchs make a convinction operational and issue a service order that carries out the genocide of the Jews of Europe. A goal that their ideology and the regime of which they are enthusiastic builders have always “dreamed”. When we say, don’t waste time.

*Social historian of ideas