The Final Solution

The Final Solution to the Jewish Question (German: Die Endlösung der Judenfrage) refers to the German Nazis' plan to engage in systematic genocide against the European Jewish population during World War II. The term was coined by Adolf Eichmann, a top Nazi official who supervised the genocidal campaign and was captured, tried and executed by Israeli authorities in 1961–1962. The implementation of the Final Solution resulted in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust. The expression reflects the belief that the Jewish European population itself posed a "question" and a problem.

Mass killings of over 1 million Jews occurred before the plans of the Final Solution were fully implemented in 1942, but it was only with the decision to eradicate the entire Jewish population that the extermination camps were built and industrialized mass slaughter of Jews began in earnest. This decision to systematically kill the Jews of Europe was made by the time of, or at the Wannsee conference, which took place in Berlin, in the Wannsee Villa on January 20, 1942. During the conference, there was a discussion held by a group of German Nazi officials to decide on the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question". The records and minutes of this meeting were found intact by the Allies at the end of the war and served as valuable evidence during the Nuremberg Trials. By spring of 1942, Operation Reinhard began the systematic extermination of the Jews, although hundreds of thousands already had been killed by death squads and in mass pogroms. In Heinrich Himmler's speech at the Posen Conference of October 6, 1943, Himmler, for the first time, clearly elucidated to all assembled leaders of the Reich, in frank and brutal terms, what the "Final Solution" actually referred to.
Contents