On 20 January 1942, as Nazi Germany's war effort sours due to the failure of Operation Barbarossa, the entrance of the United States into World War II, and the death of Walther von Reichenau, a meeting is held to determine the method by which the government is to implement Adolf Hitler's policy, that the German sphere of influence should be free of Jews, including those in the occupied territories of Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Czechoslovakia and France. As the film opens, various officials from different German agencies arrive and mingle at a lakeside villa in the Berlin borough of Wannsee. Among those present: