Ideas, Bureaucracy, Distance from Action, and Genocide Today was one of two days specifically dedicated to explore the role of bureaucracy in the Holocaust. The Wannsee House, a spacious and luxurious villa in a ritzy resort town southwest of Berlin, was the location where orders were handed down to the various ministers and secretaries of the Third Reich needed for this coordinated action, this execution of “the final solution to the Jewish question,” to run smoothly. From among the 15 officials who sat around the table one could tally up numerous advanced degrees (at least 8 Ph.D’s) and jurist doctorates,