The Wannsee Conference was a meeting held on January 20, 1942. It was held in a villa in the suburb of Wannsee, Berlin and was attended by fifteen significant officials of the Nazi Party and German government. Included were nine representatives from agencies of the state who were individually responsible for justice, control of foreign occupied territories and military strategy. There were also six members of the Shutzstaffel present. The Schutzstaffel originally comprised of a group of three hundred men who acted as bodyguards when it was established by Adolf Hitler in 1929. By 1942, nine years after Hitler took office, it was estimated to be around two hundred and fifty thousand men who controlled local police and “racial” matters as well as national security, foreign espionage and counterintelligence. The purpose of the conference involved the clarification of fundamental questions and continual implementation involving the delicately worded “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” or “die Endlösung der Judenfrage” as it was referred to in German. At the time of the conference, the directions of the Final Solution had already been carried out for approximately six months. The Final Solution not only regarded “the expulsion of Jews from every sphere of life and living space of the German people” and “making all necessary arrangements for the emigration of Jews with maximum efficiency”, but also the removal of ‘undesirables’. The Final Solution had been in existence for a substantial period of time, and the concept of it for even longer. Initially, it was a concept of the expulsion of Jews from Germany. By the time the Wannsee Conference was being held, it had evolved into a case of purposeful genocide of Jews all over Europe with the gas chambers being used on a frequent basis and segregation and discrimination being grossly involved. At the end of the conference, the details of the Final Solution had been refined. It stated that all Jews in Europe were to be sent to concentration camps or other killing centres. The elderly and the very young were to be killed immediately while the remaining would die from forced labour with sufficient nutrition and harsh treatment from supervisors. Those who did not perish as a result of this would eventually be sent to the gas chambers. This treatment also applied to homosexuals, Gypsies, some Ukrainians and Polish Christians who the Nazis deemed sub-human and thus required elimination.