When did the final soloution actually begin?

Answer 1

It began before it was called the 'Final Solution'. So whereas Himmler may have only 'announced' the Final Solution on 4th October 1943, the mass murder started in June 1941 and the experiments in mass gassing started even before this.

______

One must never make the mistake of applying modern morality to the events of history.

Actually, the Final Solutions as The Final Solution was adopted at the Wannsee Conference that met on 20 January 1942 and implemented later that year. Prior to the conference, Hitler directed the attendees to discover a final solution to the "Jewish question." (...die Endlösung der Judenfrage).

Discussions on this topic are a minefield, but in the most clinical terms: Germany was fighting a war on two fronts. They also had a sizable population imprisoned in several countries. While mass executions had occurred, had actually been a matter of military policy, since the beginning of the war, especially in Poland and the Ukraine, they were not party policy. They became party policy after the Wannsee Conference. Not only did the Nazi government have to struggle to feed the civilian population, they had to fight to feed and equip the military so they could continue to fight the war. There was little left over for inmate populations. This is by no means an attempt to humanize an inhumane act, but the Nazi party made what they believed to be a practical decision and began executing mass numbers of Jews, Gypsies, homosexual, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the other groups who were in the camps, partially in what they believed to be an attempt to alleviate the strain on resources. In reality, Hitler and the Nazi's were devoted students of history. Most of the camp system and the events that ensued during the reign of the Nazis was modeled after similar programs that had been adopted by other governments in other nations. Hitler himself referred to the concentration camps originally as reservations. The Final Solution was in part modeled after the Armenian Holocaust of 1915-1917. And, Hitler's reference to the "Jewish Question" is an obvious homage to the political debate that existed in common thought after the Berlin Conference of 1878 and referred to as the Armenian Question. More goes on here the the demon actions of the Nazis.

____

With respect, the expression the Jewish Question has been in use in English since about 1750 (without any murderous intention and without the kind of obesessiveness that the Nazis gave it). It referred simply to the role of the Jews and such questions as whether judgments made by Jews on British soil in accordance with Jewish laws were actually binding and so on. There are, as far as I'm aware, only two references by Hitler to the Armenians and both are in unreliable sources ...

As for the actual Holocaust (Final Solution) it was already under way by the time that the Wannsee Conference took place. In fact, most of the Serbian Jews were dead by the end of 1941. The idea that the Holocaust (Final Solution) began with the Conference was abandoned by most specialists on the the subject three decades ago.

Please see the related question.