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The '''Final Solution''' ({{
The nature and timing of the decisions that led to the Final Solution is an intensely researched and debated aspect of the Holocaust. The program evolved during the first 25 months of war leading to the attempt at "murdering every last Jew in the German grasp".{{r|Browning424}} [[Christopher Browning]], a historian specializing in the Holocaust, wrote that most historians agree that the Final Solution cannot be attributed to a single decision made at one particular point in time.{{r|Browning424}} "It is generally accepted the decision-making process was prolonged and incremental."<ref name=Browning213>{{harvp|Browning|2004|p=213}}.</ref> In 1940, following the [[Fall of France]], [[Adolf Eichmann#Transition from emigration to deportation|Adolf Eichmann]] devised the [[Madagascar Plan]] to move Europe's Jewish population to the French colony, but the plan was abandoned for logistical reasons, mainly [[Blockade of Germany (1939–45)|a naval blockade]].<ref name="CRB/Path"/> There were also preliminary plans to deport Jews to [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]] and [[Siberia]].{{sfn|Niewyk|Nicosia|2000|p=76}} [[Raul Hilberg]] wrote that, in 1941, in the first phase of the mass-murder of Jews, the [[Einsatzgruppen|mobile killing units]] began to pursue their victims across occupied eastern territories; in the second phase, stretching across all of German-occupied Europe, the Jewish victims were sent on [[Holocaust trains|death trains]] to centralized [[extermination camp]]s built for the purpose of systematic murder of Jews.{{r|Hilberg273}}
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[[File:Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz 02-2014.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|The villa at 56–58 Am Großen Wannsee, where the [[Wannsee Conference]] was held, is now a memorial and museum.]]
The plans to exterminate all the Jews of Europe were formalized at the [[Wannsee Conference]], held at an SS guesthouse near Berlin,{{sfnp|Longerich|2012|p=555}} on 20 January 1942. The conference was chaired by Heydrich and attended by 15 senior officials of the Nazi Party and the German government. Most of those attending were representatives of the [[Ministry of the Interior (Germany)|Interior Ministry]], the [[Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Germany)|Foreign Ministry]], and the [[Ministry of Justice (Germany)|Justice Ministry]], including Ministers for the Eastern Territories.{{sfnp|Roseman|2002|pp=65–67}} At the conference, Heydrich indicated that approximately 11,000,000 Jews in Europe would fall under the provisions of the "Final Solution". This figure included not only Jews residing in Axis-controlled Europe, but also the Jewish populations of the United Kingdom and of neutral nations (Switzerland, Ireland, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, and European Turkey).<ref name=Wannsee/> Eichmann's biographer [[David Cesarani]] wrote that Heydrich's main purpose in convening the conference was to assert his authority over the various agencies dealing with Jewish issues. "The simplest, most decisive way that Heydrich could ensure the smooth flow of deportations" to death camps, according to Cesarani, "was by asserting his total control over the fate of the Jews in the Reich and the east" under the single authority of the [[RSHA]].{{sfnp|Cesarani|2005|pp=110–11}} A copy of the minutes of this meeting (later called the Wannsee Conference Protocol) was found by the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]] in March 1947;<ref>{{cite web |title=Protocol of Conference on the final solution (Endlösung) of the Jewish question |url=https://www.ghwk.de/fileadmin/Redaktion/PDF/Konferenz/texte/English_translation_wannsee_protocol_2020.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230409112828/https://www.ghwk.de/fileadmin/Redaktion/PDF/Konferenz/texte/English_translation_wannsee_protocol_2020.pdf |archive-date=9 April 2023 |access-date=7 August 2023 |publisher=House of the Wannsee Conference}}</ref> it was too late to serve as evidence during the first [[Nuremberg Trials|Nuremberg Trial]], but was used by prosecutor General [[Telford Taylor]] in the [[subsequent Nuremberg Trials]].{{sfnp|Roseman|2002|pp=1–2}}
After the end of World War II, surviving archival documents provided a clear record of the Final Solution policies and actions of Nazi Germany. They included the Wannsee Conference Protocol, which documented the co-operation of various German state agencies in the SS-led Holocaust, as well as some 3,000 tons of original German records captured by Allied armies,<ref name=Feig8112>{{cite book |first=Konnilyn G. |last=Feig |title=Hitler's death camps: the sanity of madness |year=1981 |publisher=Holmes & Meier |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CNqEAAAAIAAJ&q=soldiers%2C+railroad+and+factory+workers%2C+chemists%2C+pharmacists%2C+foremen |pages=12–13 |isbn=0841906769 |quote=Hitler exterminated the Jews of Europe. But he did not do so alone. The task was so enormous, complex, time-consuming, and mentally and economically demanding that it took the best efforts of millions of Germans.}}</ref><ref name="evidence"/> including the [[Einsatzgruppen reports|''Einsatzgruppen'' reports]], which documented the progress of the mobile killing units assigned, among other tasks, to murder Jewish civilians during the attack on the Soviet Union in 1941. The evidential proof which documented the mechanism of [[the Holocaust]] was submitted [[Nuremberg trial|at Nuremberg]].<ref name="evidence">{{cite web |title=Combating Holocaust Denial: Evidence of the Holocaust Presented at Nuremberg |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007271 |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |access-date=8 November 2013}}</ref>
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Construction work on the first killing centre at [[Bełżec extermination camp|Bełżec]] in occupied Poland began in October 1941, three months before the Wannsee Conference. The new facility was operational by March the following year.<ref name="M/MPwB">{{cite web |title=Historia Niemieckiego Obozu Zagłady w Bełżcu |trans-title=History of the Belzec extermination camp |publisher=Muzeum-Miejsce Pamięci w Bełżcu |author=National Bełżec Museum |url=http://www.belzec.eu/articles.php?acid=77 |language=pl |access-date=24 January 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151029003413/http://www.belzec.eu/articles.php?acid=77 |archive-date=29 October 2015}}</ref> By mid-1942, two more death camps had been built on Polish lands: [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]] operational by May 1942, and [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]] operational in July.<ref name="JVL-Reinhard">{{cite web |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/reinhard.html#5 |title=The Construction of the Treblinka Extermination Camp |publisher=Jewish Virtual Library.org |work=Yad Vashem Studies, XVI |year=1984 |access-date=3 November 2013 |author=McVay, Kenneth}}</ref> From July 1942, the mass murder of Polish and foreign Jews took place at [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]] as part of [[Operation Reinhard]], the deadliest phase of the Final Solution. More Jews were murdered at Treblinka than at any other Nazi [[extermination camp]] apart from [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]].<ref name="Berenbaum">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Berenbaum |first=Michael |title=Treblinka |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |year=2016 |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. |location=Chicago }}</ref> By the time the mass killings of Operation Reinhard ended in 1943, roughly two million Jews in German-occupied Poland had been murdered.<ref name =Reinhard/> The total number of people murdered in 1942 in [[Majdanek concentration camp|Lublin/Majdanek]], [[Bełżec extermination camp|Bełżec]], [[Sobibor extermination camp|Sobibór]], and [[Treblinka]] was 1,274,166 by [[Höfle Telegram|Germany's own estimation]], not counting [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz II Birkenau]] nor ''[[Chełmno extermination camp|Kulmhof]]''.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Holocaust Encyclopedia |author1=Walter Laqueur |author2=Judith Tydor Baumel |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2001 |isbn=0300138113 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nPbr0XzlTzcC&q=Chelmno+graveyard |page=178 |author1-link=Walter Laqueur }}</ref> Their bodies were buried in mass graves initially.{{sfnp|Arad|1987|p=640}} Both Treblinka and Bełżec were equipped with powerful [[crawler excavator]]s from Polish construction sites in the vicinity, capable of most digging tasks without disrupting surfaces.<ref name="ushmm-belzec">{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005191 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120107184303/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005191 |archive-date=7 January 2012 |encyclopedia=The Holocaust Encyclopedia |title=Belzec |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |access-date=24 January 2016}}</ref> Although other methods of extermination, such as the cyanic poison [[Zyklon B]], were already being used at other Nazi killing centres such as Auschwitz, the ''[[Aktion Reinhard]]'' camps used [[carbon monoxide poisoning|lethal exhaust gases]] from captured tank engines.<ref>{{cite book |first=K. |last=Carol Rittner, Roth |title=Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t2AjlkSlMa8C&q=captured-soviet+tank+engines+holocaust&pg=PA2 |publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group |year=2004 |page=2 |isbn=978-0-8264-7566-4}}</ref>
The ''Holocaust by bullets'' (as opposed to the ''Holocaust by gas'')<ref>{{cite AV media |url=http://natgeotv.com/ca/world-war-ii-the-apocalypse/videos/the-holocaust-by-bullets |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100309133810/http://www.natgeotv.com/ca/world-war-ii-the-apocalypse/videos/the-holocaust-by-bullets |url-status=dead |archive-date=9 March 2010 |author=[[National Geographic Channel]] |title=The Holocaust by bullets |publisher=NGC Europe Limited |year=2013 |work=Excerpt from episode "Apocalypse: The Second World War"}}</ref> went on in the territory of occupied Poland in conjunction with the [[ghetto uprising]]s, irrespective of death camps' quota. In two weeks of July 1942, the [[Słonim Ghetto#The revolt|Słonim Ghetto revolt]], crushed with the help of Latvian, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian ''[[Schutzmannschaft]]'', cost the lives of 8,000–13,000 Jews.<ref>{{harvp|Longerich|2010|pp=198, 238, 347}}. See also {{cite web |author=Lawrence Bush |date=28 June 2010 |title=June 29: The Slonim Massacres |website=Jewish Currents |url=http://jewishcurrents.org/june-29-the-slonim-massacres/ |access-date=1 May 2017 }}</ref> The second largest mass shooting (to that particular date) took place in late October 1942 when the insurgency was suppressed in the [[Pińsk Ghetto]]; over 26,000 men, women and children were shot with the aid of [[Belarusian Auxiliary Police]] before the ghetto's closure.<ref name="stats">{{cite book |editor1=Ray Brandon |editor2=Wendy Lower |editor-link=Wendy Lower |url=https://
About two-thirds of the overall number of victims of the Final Solution were murdered before February 1943,<ref name="GHDI">{{cite journal |publisher=German History in Documents and Images, GHDI |volume= 7. Nazi Germany, 1933–1945 |title=Statistical Report on the "Final Solution", known as the Korherr Report of 23 March 1943 |author=Paula Lerner |year=2007 |journal=Die Endlösung by Gerald Reitlinger |url=http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/English42.pdf}}</ref> which included the main phase of the extermination programme [[Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France|in the West]] launched by [[Eichmann]] on 11 June 1942 from Berlin.<ref name="Yahil389">{{cite book |title=The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932–1945 |author=Leni Yahil |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1991 |isbn=0195045238 |page=389 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e_aRvKpLUf0C&q=West+European&pg=PA389}}</ref> The [[Holocaust trains]] run by the [[Deutsche Reichsbahn#Holocaust|Deutsche Reichsbahn]] and several other national railway systems delivered condemned Jewish captives from as far as Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Moravia, Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, and even Scandinavia.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WRFG-HKoBgEC&q=Reichsbahn+Railways&pg=PA57 |author=Ronald J. Berger |year=2002 |title=Fathoming the Holocaust: A Social Problems Approach |publisher=Transaction Publishers |isbn=0202366111 |pages=57–58 |quote=Bureaucrats in the Reichsbahn performed important functions that facilitated the movement of trains. They constructed and published timetables, collected fares, and allocated cars and locomotives. In sending Jews to their death, they did not deviate much from the routine procedures they used to process ordinary train traffic.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first1=Ben|last1=Hecht|first2=Julian|last2=Messner|date=31 December 1969 |url=http://www.aish.com/ho/o/48970811.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140222020235/http://www.aish.com/ho/o/48970811.html |archive-date=22 February 2014 |title=Holocaust: The Trains |publisher=Aish.com Holocaust Studies}}</ref> The cremation of exhumed corpses to destroy any evidence left behind began in early spring and continued throughout summer.{{sfnp|Arad|1987|pp=300–01}} The nearly completed clandestine programme of murdering all deportees was explicitly addressed by Heinrich Himmler in his [[Posen speeches]] made to the leadership of the Nazi Party on 4 October and during a conference in Posen ([[
{{blockquote|We were faced with the question: what about the women and children?–I have decided on a solution to this problem. I did not consider myself justified to exterminate the men only—in other words, to kill them or have them killed while allowing the avengers, in the form of their children, to grow up in the midst of our sons and grandsons. The difficult decision had to be made to have this people disappear from the earth.|Heinrich Himmler, 6 October 1943<ref>Bradley F. Smith & Agnes Peterson (1974), ''Heinrich Himmler. Speeches'' Frankfurt/M., pp. 169 f. {{OCLC|1241890}}; {{cite web |url= http://holocaustcontroversies.yuku.com/topic/1825/Himmlers-Speech-in-Posen-on-6-October-1943 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160127090051/http://holocaustcontroversies.yuku.com/topic/1825/Himmlers-Speech-in-Posen-on-6-October-1943 |archive-date=27 January 2016 |title=Himmler's Speech in Posen on 6 October 1944 |date= 12 March 2012 |access-date=28 February 2015 |publisher=Holocaust Controversies Reference Section }}; also (with differing translation) in {{cite web |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007407 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131214192421/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007407 |archive-date=14 December 2013 |title=Heinrich Himmler |access-date=28 February 2015 |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum }}</ref>}}
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[[Category:Holocaust historiography]]
[[Category:Ethnic cleansing in Europe]]
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