Editing Final Solution (section)

==Background==
[[File:Adolf Hitler's speech in the Reichstag, 30 January 1939.jpg|thumb|left|[[Hitler's prophecy speech]] in the Reichstag, 30 January 1939]]
The term "Final Solution" was a [[euphemism]] used by the Nazis to refer to their plan for the annihilation of the [[Jewish People|Jewish people]].<ref name=Museum/> Some historians argue that the usual tendency of the German leadership was to be extremely guarded when discussing the Final Solution. For example, [[Mark Roseman]] wrote that euphemisms were "their normal mode of communicating about murder".{{sfnp|Roseman|2002|p=87}} However, [[Jeffrey Herf]] has argued that the role of euphemisms in Nazi propaganda has been exaggerated, and in fact Nazi leaders often made direct threats against Jews.{{sfn|Herf|2005|p=54}} For example, during his [[30 January 1939 Reichstag speech|speech of 30 January 1939]], Hitler threatened "[[Hitler's prophecy|the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe]]".{{sfn|Herf|2005|p=56}}

From gaining power in January 1933 until the [[World War II|outbreak of war]] in September 1939, the Nazi persecution of the Jews in Germany was focused on intimidation, expropriating their money and property, and encouraging them to emigrate.<ref name=MRo12/> According to the [[Nuremberg Laws|Nazi Party policy statement]], Jews and the [[Romani people]]{{r|Browning181}} were the only "alien people in Europe".<ref name="Hancock">{{cite book |title=The Routledge History of the Holocaust |author=Ian Hancock |editor=[[Jonathan C. Friedman]] |publisher=Taylor & Francis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vsrJLASVC3QC&q=Menace+Bureau |page=378 |year=2010 |isbn=978-1136870606|author-link=Ian Hancock }} ''Also in:'' {{cite book |title=The Gypsies of Eastern Europe |author1=David M. Crowe |author2=John Kolsti |author3=Ian Hancock |publisher=Routledge |year=2016 |isbn=978-1315490243 |page=16 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jyC3DAAAQBAJ&q=Nuremberg+anti-Gypsyism|author1-link=David M. Crowe }}</ref> In 1936, the Bureau of Romani Affairs in [[Munich]] was renamed to the Center for Combating the Gypsy Menace.<ref name="Hancock"/> Introduced at the end of 1937,<ref name=Browning181>{{harvp|Browning|2004|loc=(2007 ed.: pp. 179, 181–12}}). [https://books.google.com/books?id=d9Wg4gjtP3cC&q=Gypsy+question+final "The Gypsy question"].</ref> the "[[Porajmos|final solution of the Gypsy Question]]" entailed [[Roundup (history)|round-ups]], expulsions, and incarceration of Romani in concentration camps built at, until this point, [[Dachau concentration camp|Dachau]], [[Buchenwald]], [[Flossenbürg concentration camp|Flossenbürg]], [[Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp|Mauthausen]], [[Natzweiler]], [[Ravensbruck]], [[List of subcamps of Buchenwald|Taucha]] and [[Westerbork]]. After the [[Anschluss|Anschluss with Austria]] in 1938, [[Central Office for Jewish Emigration|Central Offices for Jewish Emigration]] were established in [[Vienna]] and [[Berlin]] to increase Jewish emigration, without covert plans for their forthcoming annihilation.<ref name=MRo12>{{harvp|Roseman|2002|pp=11–12}}.</ref>

The outbreak of war and the [[History of Poland#World War II and its violence|invasion of Poland]] brought a population of 3.5 million Polish Jews under the control of [[Gestapo–NKVD Conferences|the Nazi and Soviet security forces]],<ref name="Lukas">{{cite book |last1=Lukas |first1=Richard |author-link1=Richard C. Lukas |url=https://archive.org/details/outofinferno00rela |url-access=registration |quote=Nazi terror. |title=Out of the Inferno: Poles Remember the Holocaust |publisher=[[University Press of Kentucky]] |year=1989 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/outofinferno00rela/page/5 5], 13, 111, 201|isbn=0813116929 }}; also in {{cite book |orig-year=1986 |year=2012 |last1=Lukas |first1= Richard |author-link1=Richard C. Lukas |publisher=University of Kentucky Press/Hippocrene Books |isbn=978-0-7818-0901-6 |title=The Forgotten Holocaust: Poles Under Nazi Occupation 1939–1944 |location=New York |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Lv1mAAAAMAAJ&q=editions:lC7HhINUjXIC}}</ref> and marked the start of [[the Holocaust in Poland]].{{r|Browning213}} In the German-occupied zone of Poland, Jews were forced into [[Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland|hundreds of makeshift ghettos]], pending other arrangements.<ref name="HEnc">{{cite web |title=German Invasion of Poland: Jewish Refugees, 1939 |author=Holocaust Encyclopedia |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |location= Washington, DC |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005593}}</ref>

In April 1941, the German [[Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture|agriculture]] and [[Reichsministerium des Innern|interior]] ministries designated the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] as an authorized applier of [[Zyklon B]], which meant they were able to use it without any further training or governmental oversight.<ref name=hayes>{{cite book | last = Hayes | first = Peter | author-link=Peter Hayes (historian) |title = From Cooperation to Complicity: Degussa in the Third Reich | year = 2004 | publisher = Cambridge University Press | location = Cambridge; New York; Melbourne | isbn = 0-521-78227-9 }}</ref> The launch of [[Operation Barbarossa]] in June 1941 coincided with the German top echelon's newfound intent to pursue [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler's]] new anti-Semitic plan to eradicate, rather than expel, Jews.<ref>{{cite book |title=God, Greed, and Genocide: The Holocaust Through the Centuries |first=Arthur |last=Grenke |publisher=New Academia Publishing |year=2005 |isbn=097670420X |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iBaGO8Ue2NMC&q=eradication+rather+than+expulsion |page=92}}</ref> Hitler's earlier ideas about forcible removal of Jews from the German-controlled territories to achieve ''[[Lebensraum]]'' were abandoned after the failure of the [[Battle of Britain|air campaign against Britain]], initiating a [[Blockade of Germany (1939–45)|naval blockade]] of Germany.<ref name="CRB/Path">{{cite book |last=Browning |first=Christopher R. |author-link=Christopher Browning |title=The Path to Genocide: Essays on Launching the Final Solution |year=1995 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L1O2ZvS29DYC |via=Google Books |isbn=978-0-521-55878-5 |pages=18–19, 127–28}}</ref> ''[[Reichsführer-SS]]'' [[Heinrich Himmler]] became the chief architect of a new plan, which came to be called ''The Final Solution to the [[Jewish question]]''.{{sfnp|Browning|2004|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=d9Wg4gjtP3cC&q=Lebensraum+1941 pp. 35–36]}} On 31 July 1941, ''[[Reichsmarschall]]'' [[Hermann Göring]] wrote to [[Reinhard Heydrich]] (Himmler's deputy and chief of the [[Reich Security Main Office|RSHA]]),{{sfnp|Roseman|2002|pp=14–15}}{{sfnp|Hilberg|1985|p= 278}} authorising him to make the "necessary preparations" for a "total solution of the Jewish question" and coordinate with all affected organizations. Göring also instructed Heydrich to submit concrete proposals for the implementation of the new projected goal.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d9Wg4gjtP3cC&pg=PA315|title=The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 – March 1942|last=Browning|first=Christopher R.|year=2007|publisher=University of Nebraska Press|isbn=978-0803203921|page=315|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ghwk.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf-wannsee/engl/goering.pdf |title=Authorization letter of Hermann Göring to Heydrich, 31 July 1941 |last=Göring |first=Hermann |date=31 July 1941 |access-date=3 June 2014 |publisher=House of the Wannsee Conference |archive-date=19 February 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180219024305/http://www.ghwk.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf-wannsee/engl/goering.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Broadly speaking, the extermination of Jews was carried out in two major operations. With the onset of [[Operation Barbarossa]], mobile killing units of the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]], the ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]'', and [[Order Police battalions]] were dispatched to the occupied Soviet Union for the express purpose of murdering all Jews. During the early stages of the invasion, Himmler himself visited [[Białystok]] at the beginning of July 1941, and requested that, "as a matter of principle, any Jew" behind the [[German-Soviet Frontier Treaty|German-Soviet frontier]] was to be "regarded as a partisan". His new orders gave the [[SS and police leader]]s full authority for the mass-murder behind the front lines. By August 1941, all Jewish men, women, and children were shot.{{sfnp|Longerich|2012|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=GBQchepZ-7EC&q=Bialystok%2Bprinciple&pg=PA525 525–33]}} In the second phase of annihilation, the Jewish inhabitants of central, western, and south-eastern Europe were transported by [[Holocaust trains]] to camps with newly built gassing facilities. [[Raul Hilberg]] wrote: "In essence, the killers of the occupied USSR moved to the victims, whereas outside this arena, the victims were brought to the killers. The two operations constitute an evolution not only chronologically, but also in complexity."<ref name=Hilberg273>{{harvp|Hilberg|1985|p=273}}.</ref> Massacres of about one million Jews occurred before plans for the Final Solution were fully implemented in 1942, but it was only with the decision to annihilate the entire Jewish population that [[extermination camp]]s such as [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz II Birkenau]] and [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]] were fitted with permanent [[gas chamber]]s to murder large numbers of Jews in a relatively short period of time.{{sfnp|Browning|2004|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=d9Wg4gjtP3cC&q=gas+chambers pp. 352–56]}}<ref name=Feig8112/>

[[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{{nbsp}}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>