Editing Final Solution (section)

{{short description|Nazi plan for the genocide of Jews}}
{{About|the Nazi German policy}}
{{pp-vandalism|small=yes}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2020}}
{{Infobox holocaust event
| name          = Final Solution
| image         = Heydrich-Endlosung.jpg
| image_size    = 230px
| caption       = Follow-up letter from [[Reinhard Heydrich]] to the German diplomat [[Martin Luther (diplomat)|Martin Luther]] asking for administrative assistance in the implementation of the Final Solution, 26 February 1942
| AKA           = ''Endlösung der Judenfrage''
| location      = [[German-occupied Europe]]
| date          = 1941–1945
| incident_type = [[Incitement to genocide]]
| perpetrators = {{ubl|[[Adolf Hitler]]|[[Nazi Germany]]}}
| participants = {{ubl|[[Schutzstaffel]] (SS)| [[Sicherheitspolizei|Security Police]] (SiPo)| [[Gestapo]]| [[Kriminalpolizei]] (Kripo)| [[Sicherheitsdienst|SD]]| [[Order Police battalions]]| [[Waffen-SS]]| [[Wehrmacht]]}}
| organizations = <!-- Organizations -->
| camp          = <!-- Camp          -->
| ghetto        = {{ubl|World War II [[Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe]]|[[Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland]] and the Soviet Union}}
| victims       = <!-- Victims       -->
| survivors     = <!-- Survivors     -->
| witnesses     = <!-- Witnesses     -->
| documentation = <!-- Documentation -->
| memorials     = <!-- Memorials     -->
| notes         = <!-- Notes         -->
}}
The '''Final Solution'''{{efn|{{langx|de|die Endlösung}} {{IPA|de|diː ˈʔɛntˌløːzʊŋ||De-Endlösung.ogg}}}} or the '''Final Solution to the Jewish Question'''{{efn|{{langx|de|Endlösung der Judenfrage}} {{IPA|de|ˈɛntˌløːzʊŋ deːɐ̯ ˈjuːdn̩ˌfʁaːɡə||De-Endlösung der Judenfrage.ogg}}}} was a plan orchestrated by [[Nazi Germany]] during [[World War&nbsp;II]] for the [[genocide]] of individuals they defined as [[Jews]]. The "Final Solution to the [[Jewish question]]" was the official [[code name]] for the murder of all Jews within reach, which was not restricted to the European continent.<ref>{{cite book |last=Browning |first=Christopher |year=2007 |title=The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 – March 1942|publisher= University of Nebraska Press |quote=In a brief two years between the autumn of 1939 and the autumn of 1941, Nazi Jewish policy escalated rapidly from the pre-war policy of forced emigration to the Final Solution as it is now understood—the systematic attempt to murder every last Jew within the German grasp.}}</ref> This policy of deliberate and systematic genocide starting across [[German-occupied Europe]] was formulated in procedural and geopolitical terms by [[Government of Nazi Germany|Nazi leadership]] in January 1942 at the [[Wannsee Conference]] held near Berlin,<ref name=Wannsee>{{cite web |title=Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution |url=https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005477 |access-date=30 March 2015 |publisher=[[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]] }}</ref> and culminated in [[the Holocaust]], which saw [[The Holocaust in Poland|the murder of 90% of Polish Jews]],<ref name="Wyman">{{cite book |title=The World Reacts to the Holocaust |author1=David S. Wyman |author2=Charles H. Rosenzveig |publisher=JHU Press |year=1996 |page=99 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U6KVOsjpP0MC&q=%2290+percent%22 |isbn=0801849691}}</ref> and two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe.<ref name=Museum>{{cite web |title='Final Solution': Overview |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005151 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130302130042/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005151 |archive-date=2 March 2013 |access-date=5 February 2016 |publisher= United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |author=Holocaust Encyclopedia}}</ref>

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}}