The municipality is the location of the compound where the mass-extermination of Europe's Jewish population, known as the "Final Solution", was planned and approved in early 1942 by the Nazi Party's highest ranking officials, including Reinhard Heydrich and Adolf Eichmann.

The locality also includes the districts of Kohlhasenbrück (named after the 1811 novella Michael Kohlhaas by Heinrich von Kleist) and Steinstücken, which in Cold War days became famous as a tiny exclave of West Berlin within the GDR.

The Strandbad Wannsee, an open-air lido with one of the longest inland beaches in Europe and a nudist area, was built in 1929–1930 after a concept by architect Richard Ermisch.

The history of Wannsee as an attractive suburb of Berlin began when "Great Elector" Frederick William of Brandenburg ordered the construction of a hunting lodge, the Jagdschloss Glienicke.

Jagdschloss Glienicke and Pfaueninsel castle are both part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin.

On 21 November 1811, German writer Heinrich von Kleist shot himself on the shore of the Kleiner Wannsee and, at her bidding, his lover, Henriette Vogel.

Nikolskoe, consisting of the church, a cottage, a school and a cemetery, was established from 1813 to 1837 at the suggestion by a Russian Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, the daughter of King Frederick William III of Prussia.

The Verein Seglerhaus am Wannsee, the second oldest yacht club in Germany, was established in October 1867 on a small wooden shack by River Havel.

On 20 January 1942, senior Nazi officials met at the Wannsee Villa (built 1914–1915) to ensure the cooperation of the major government organizations in "the organizational, logistical and material steps for a final solution of the Jewish question in Europe" - the extermination of the Jews of Europe.