Friedrich Minoux - Wansee House and Political Ambitions

Wansee House and Political Ambitions

Minoux opposed the Weimar Republic and maintained contacts with right-wing extremists, military federations, and politicians. In 1931 he became a member of the Society for the Study of Fascism, and two years later he would be elected into the Academy for German Law. In 1921, Minoux purchased the Wannsee House (also called Wannsee Villa), which was originally built in the outskirts of Berlin by Ernst Marlier. In 1923, during the height of the economic crisis that would eventually cause the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Third Reich, Minoux offered his assistance to the German Army High Command in exchange for a cabinet-level position in the coming government. His ambitions would not come to fruition. That same year, the army abandoned plans for a putsch against the government, and talks between Minoux and the Nazis eventually collapsed.

On August 15, 1941, Minoux was convicted of defrauding the Berlin Gasworks. At the time this was considered the largest business swindle of the Nazi era. He was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment and hefty fines. From his jail cell in Berlin, Minoux sold Wannsee House to the Stiftung Nordhav, a foundation controlled by Reinhard Heydrich. Subsequently, the property became an important center of operations for the SS Security Service and the Reich Security Main Office. It was there that the Wannsee Conference would eventually be held on January 20, 1942. Today the villa is a museum dedicated to the remembrance of the Holocaust.

Minoux died of starvation a few months after the Allies liberated him from Brandenburg prison in 1945. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the Alter Friedhof on Lindenstraße in Wannsee.